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LETTERS „ 



w ■««#'{_ 



ON- 



EARLY EDUCATION 



ADDRESSED TO J. P. GREAVES, ESQ. 



-BY- 



.,,,, v^ J/^^ 



SXALOZZI 



Translated from the German Man-uscript 




SYKACUSE, K. Y. 

C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 

1898 



Copyright, 1898, by C. W. Bardeen 



WO COPIES RECEIVED. 



^1 






7312 



DEDICATED TO MOTHEES 



Then why resign into a stranger's hand 
A task so much within your own command 
That God and Nature, and your feelings too, 
Seem with one voice to delegate 1o you?" 



PUBLISHER'S XOTE 



The German originals of these letters have never 
been published, and they are probably no longer in 
existence. 

In Seyffarth's edition of Pestalozzi's complete works, 
Blandenburg, 1872, this book under its English title 
is mentioned in the supplementary bibliography on 
page 395 of V^ol. 16. The edition is given as of Lon- 
don, 1851. In Mann's edition, Langensalza, 1883, I 
find no reference whatever to this book. In the col- 
lective edition of Pestalozzi's works published from 
1819 to 1823, there is no mention of these letters. 
The 9th volume, published in 1822, contains miscel- 
laneous writings with other letters, but no reference 
to these. 

Biber in his Life of Pestalozzi (1831) remarks, 
page 467 : 

" His letter on religious education, from which the 
above abstract is taken, closes the work ' How Ger- 
trude Teaches Her little Ones ', and that work itself 
closes the series of Pestalozzi's writings so far as they 
come within the plan of the present volume. The 
few publications connected with our subject which ap- 
peared subsequently under Pestalozzi's name are as we 
have already hinted the productions of his school rather 

(1) 



2 Letters ox Early Education 

than those of his own mind, and have therefore no claim 
to onr notice on the present occasion except inasmuch 
as they might tend to throw light upon the practical 
part of the latter." 

Christoffel's " Pestalozzi's Leben und Ansichten ", 
Zurich, 1846, makes no reference either to Greaves or 
to this book. 

Von Raumer's " Life and System of Pestalozzi ", 
translated by A. Tilleard, London, 1835, makes this 
statement on page 66 : 

" An Englishman of the name of Greaves visited 
Yverdun in 1819; he offered to teach these poor Swiss 
children English without remuneration, and his offer 
was accej)ted. On this step Pestalozzi himself re- 
marks, ' This created an impression which, consider- 
ing the original destination of these children, led us 
very far astray.' " 

Ebenezer Cooke in his introduction to the English 
translation of " How Gertrude Teaches Her Children " 
( Syracuse, 1894 ), quotes ( p. xxviii ) from V^ulliemin's 
" Reminiscences ": 

" Clendy fell. There was a man there who had taken 
part in the short-lived enterprise, a man of Christian 
spirit and enlightened understanding. This man, who 
was an Englishman, by name Greaves, carried the ideas 
he had gathered at Clendy back to England, where 
they took root, and became the origin of infant schools. 



Publisher's Xote 3 

I^^rom England these schools returned to us, first to 
Geneva, then to Xyon, then everywhere. We had not 
understood Pestalozzi, but when his methods came 
hack from England, though they had lost something 
of their original spirit, their meaning and application 
were clear." 

In De Guimps's " Pestalozzi, his Aim and Work " 
(Syracuse, 1889), Appendix B (pp. 300-302) is devoted 
to this book. It begins thus : " Mr. G. Greaves visited 
Clendy and took great interest in the work there. On 
his return to England he corresponded with Pestalozzi 
(between 1818 and 1820), and the letters have been 
published in English. They are now out of print. 
They deal with the subject of Infant Education and 
the direction of Mothers in the training of their chil- 
dren." A synopsis of the book by chapters follows. 

This translation is therefore the only authority we 
have for these letters. The present volume is a reprint 
from the London edition of 1827. The headlines and 
table of contents are added. As a w^hole it is more 
perspicuous than most of the translations of Pesta- 
lozzi's difficult German. As it is the last, so it is in 
some respects the fullest exposition of Pestalozzi's 
views ; and its value is especially great now when so 
much effort is making to enlist the co-operation of 
mothers in the early education of children. 

Syracuse, X. Y., Aprils, 1898 



CO^TEl^TS 



PAGE 

I. Education iu school less important than that by 

mothers 9 

II. Maternal love qualifies the mother for teaching 12 

III. Development of the child's faculties 16 

IV. How to train these faculties toward true happiness. . 20 
V. All faculties to be cultivated according to the spirit- 
ual nature 25 

VI. The growth of faith and love 30 

VII. Kindness the agent in education, arousing sympathy. 35 

VIII. The child is innately noble 40 

IX. The animal nature must not be allowed to rule 47 

X. Joy and sympathy the tokens of man's nature 52 

XI. Kindness the ruling principle 57 

XII. Education in self-denial 61 

XIII. Fear and awe not proper motives 65 

XIV. Affection the primitive motive 70 

XV. Instinctive love to be developed into piety 74 

XVI. Self-denial the criterion of maternal education 79 

XVII. Self-denial inculcated through kindness, not severity 83 

XVIII. Separation of the child from the mother 88 

XIX. The first step the child takes toward the mother 93 

XX. Development of thought and of opinion 96 

XXI. Harmonious development of all the faculties 101 

XXII. Physical education ; need of gymnastics 106 

(5) 



6 Letteks ok Eakly Educatioi^^ 

PAGE 

XXIII. Education of the senses ; importance of music. . . .111 

XXIV. Drawing and modelling; geometry, geography. . .118 
XXV. Importance of the education of mothers 124 

XXVI. What uneducated mothers may do ; home object- 
lessons 129 

XXVII. The education of women 135 

XXVIII. Memorizing without understanding. Things be- 
fore words 140 

XXIX. Encourage intellectual self-activity ; talk with 

children, not to them 146 

XXX. Let education be work, but make it interesting. . . .151 

XXXI. Lessons in number, form, language 155 

XXXII. Independence of miud ; wdiat constitutes happiness. 162 

XXXIII. Fear and ambition as motives 167 

XXXIV. Christian education 174 



ADVERTISEMENT 



When the Transhitor at the request of his much- 
respected friend to whom the following Letters are 
addressed undertook to revise the manuscript with 
view to its publication, he was fortunate enough to 
obtain from Pestalozzi permission to make any altera- 
tions that might become necessary from the circum- 
stances under which the letters had originally been 
written. 

Of this privilege the Translator has availed himself 
freely — but not more so than he considered himself 
authorized by the state in which he found the manu- 
script, and his familiarity with Pestalozzi 's views which 
the study of his works and the recollection of the days 
spent in his society have tended to produce. However, 
as he who might have sanctioned the execution, as he 
had encouraged the design, is now no more, the Trans- 
lator has the satisfaction to state that the following 
sheets previously to their publication have been sub- 
mitted to the eye of some of the warmest as well as 
most enlightened friends of Pestalozzi. 

And here the Translator might address himself to 
the indulgence of his readers, and call their attention 

(7) 



8 Letters ox Early Educations' 

to the difficulties which as a foreigner he must neces- 
sarily have had to encounter in writing in a language 
not his own ; but he prefers an appeal to their sense of 
justice, and earnestly solicits, whenever the sentiment 
may be Avanting in perspicuity or the expression in 
correctness, — whenever, from an attempt at distinct- 
ness the impressive eloquence of the original may have 
been " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," — 
that these blemishes may be visited solely on him, the 
Translator, and that the candid readers may be guided 
by those passages which come home to their bosoms 
with the genuine force of truth, and by those only, in 
forming an idea of the views of the truly venerable 
author. 

LoKDOK, Aug. 21^ 1827 



LETTER I 



Yyerduk, October, 1, 1818.- 
My dear Greaves, 

You require of me to point out to you, in a series 
of letters, my views concerning the development of 
the infant mind. 

I am happy to see that you acknowledge the import- 
ance of education in the earliest stage of life : a fact 
that has almost universally been overlooked. The 
philanthropic efforts, both of a former age, and of our 
own, have been directed in general to the improvement 
of schools, and their various modes of instruction. It 
will not be expected that I should say anything tend- 
ing to depreciate such endeavors : the greater part of 
my life has been devoted to the arduous aim at their 
3ombination; and the results and acknowledgments 
[ have obtained, are such as to convince me that my 
.abor has not been in vain. But I can assure you, 
fny dear friend, from the experience of more than half 
I century, and from the most intimate conviction of 
□ay heart, founded upon this experience, that I should 

(9) 



10 Letters o^ Early Education, I 

not consider our task as being half accomplished, I 
should not anticipate half the consequences for the real 
benefit of mankind, as long as our system of improve- 
ment failed of extending to the earliest stage of educa- 
tion: and to succeed in this, we require the most pow- 
erful ally of our cause, as far as human power may 
contribute to an end which eternal love and wisdom 
have assigned to the endeavours of man. It is on this 
altar that we shall lay down the sacrifice of all our efforts ; 
and if our gift is to be accepted, it must be conveyed 
through the medium of maternal love. 

Yes! my dear friend, this object of our ardent de- 
sires will never be attained but through the assistance 
of the mothers. To them we must appeal ; with them we 
must pray for the blessing of heaven; in them try to 
awaken a deep sense of all the consequences of all the 
self-denials, and of all the rewards attached to their 
interesting duties. Let each take an active part in that 
most important sphere of influence. Such is the as- 
piration of an aged man, who is anxious to secure what- 
ever good he may have been allowed to promote or to 
conceive. Your heart will unite with his: I feel it will. 
I shake hands with you, as with one who fervently em- 
braces this cause — not -my cause, nor that of any other 
mortal, — but the cause of Him who would have the 
children of His creation, and of His providence, led to 
Himself in the ways of love. 



The Mothers must be en^listed 11 

Happy should I be, if I might one day speak through 
your voice to the mothers of Great Britain How does my 
glowing heart expand at the opening prospect which has 
this moment filled my imagination! To behold a great 
and mighty nation known of old to appreciate with 
equal skill the glory of powerful enterprise, and the 
silent joys of domestic life, intent upon the welfare of 
the rising generation ; establishing the honor and hap- 
piness of those who shall one day stand in their place ; 
securing to their country her glory and her liberty, by 
a moral elevation of her children! And shall not the 
heart of a, mother hound in the consciousness that she too is to 
have her share in this immortal work f 



LETTER II 

October 3, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

Our great object is the development of the infiint 
mind, — and our great means, the agency of mothers. 

A most important question then presents itself at the 
very outset of our inquiries. Has the mother the quali- 
fications requisite for the duties and exercises we would 
impose on her ? 

I feel myself bound to enter into this question, and 
to give it, if possible, an answer fully decisive, request- 
ing your attention to the subject, as I feel persuaded 
that if my views concede with your own, you will 
agree with the reasoning founded on my statement. 

Yes! I would say, the mother is qualified, and quali- 
fied by her Creator himself, to become the principal 
agent in the development of her child. The most ar- 
dent desire for its good is already implanted in her 
heart; and what power can be more influential, more 
stimulative, than maternal love f — the most gentle, and, 
at the same time, the most intrepid power in the whole 
system of nature. Yes: the mother is qualified, for 

(12) 



A Thinking Maternal Love 13 

Providence has also gifted her with the faculties re- 
quired for her task. And here I feel it necessary to 
explain what is the task I refer to as peculiarly hers. 
It is not anything beyond her reach I would demand, 
— it is not a certain degree or description of knowledge, 
usually implied in what is vulgarly called a ^mW^ed edu- 
cation; though, if she happened to possess such knowl- 
edge, the day will come for opening her treasury and 
giving to her childi'en what she ma}^ choose : but at the 
period w^e speak out, all the knowledge acquired in the 
most accomplished education would not facilitate her 
task ; for what I would demand of her is only — a think- 
ing love. 

Love, of course, I presume to be the first requisite, 
and that which will always present itself, — only modi- 
fied, perhaps, under various forms. All I would re- 
quest of a mother would be, to let her love act as 
strongly as it may, but to season it, in the exercise, 
with thought. 

And 1 should indeed entreat a mother, by the very 
love w^hich she bears to her children, to bestow a mo- 
ment of calm reflection on the nature of her duties. I 
do not mean to lead her into an artificial discussion ; 
maternal love might be lost in the maze of philosophical 
investigation. But there is that in her feelings, which, 
in a shorter way, by a more direct process, may lead 
her to truth. To this I would appeal. Let it not be 



14 Letters ox Earlt Educatiois^, II 

concealed from lier, that her duties are both easy and 
difficult; but I hope there is no mother who has not 
found the highest reward in overcoming impediments 
in such a cause: and the whole of her duties will 
gradually open before her, if she will but dwell upon 
that simple, yet awful and elevating idea, " My child- 
ren are born for eternity, and confided expressly to 
me, that I may educate them for being children of 
God/' 

" Mother!" I would say to her, " responsible mother I 
look around thee! what diversity of pursuits, what 
variety of calling! some agitated in the turmoil of a 
restless life; others courting repose in the bosom of 
retirement. Of all the different actors that surround 
thee, whose vocation appears most sacred, most solemn, 
most holy? ' Doubtless his,' thou art ready to exclaim, 
' whose life is dedicated to the spiritual elevation of 
human nature. How happy must he be, whose calling 
it is to lead others to happiness, and happiness ever- 
lasting.' Well! happy mother! his calling is thine. 
Shrink not at the idea, — tremble not at the comparison. 
Think not I arrogate for thee a station beyond thy 
deserts, — fear not lest temptations to vanity lie hid 
in my suggestion, — but raise thy heart in gratitude to 
Him who has entrusted thee with so high a province, — 
try to render thyself worthy of the confidence reposed 
in thee. Talk not of deficiencies in thy knowledge, — 



The Mothek as a Teachee 15 

love shall supply them ; — of limitations in thy means, — 
Providence shall enlarge them; — of weakness in thy 
energies ; — the Spirit of Power himself shall strengthen 
tliem: — look to that Spirit for all that thou dost want, 
and especially for those two grand, pre-eminent requi- 
sites, courage and humility. ^^ 



LETTER III 

October 7, 1818. 
My dear Greayes, 

Every mother who is^aware of the importance of her 
task, will, I presume, be ready to devote to it all her 
zeal. She will think it indispensable to attain a clear 
view of the end for which she is to educate her children. 

I have pointed out this end in my last letter. But 
much remains to be said on the means to be employed 
in the first stage of education. 

A child is a being endowed with all the faculties of 
human nature, but none of them developed: a bud not 
yet opened. AYhen the bud uncloses, every one of the 
leaves unfolds, not one remains behind. Such must 
be the process of education. 

'No faculty in human nature but must be treated 
with the same attention ; for their co-agency alone can 
ensure their success. 

But how shall the mother learn to distinguish and 
to direct each faculty, before it appears in a state of 
development sufficient to give a token of its own ex- 
istence? 

(16) 



Deyelopmekt of the Child's Faculties 17 

Xot indeed from books, but from actual observation. 

I would ask every mother who has observed her 
child with no other end but merely to watch over its 
safety, whether she has not remarked, even in the first 
era of life, the progressive advancement of the faculties? 

The first exertions of the child, attended with some 
pain, have yet enough of pleasure to induce a repeti- 
tion gradually increasing in frequency and power ; and 
when their first efforts, blind efforts as it were, are 
once over, the little hand begins to play its more per- 
fect part. From the first movement of this hand, from 
the first grasp which avails itself of a plaything, how 
infinite is the series of actions of which it will be the 
instrument! not only employing itself in everything 
connected with the habits and comforts of life, but as- 
tonishing the world, perhaps, with some masterpiece of 
art, or seizing ere they escape the fleeting inspirations 
of genius and handing them down to the admiration of 
posterity. 

The first exertion of this little hand then opens an 
immense field to a faculty which now begins to manifest 
itself. 

In the next place the attention of the child is now 
visibly excited and fixed by a great variety of exter- 
nal impressions: the eye and the ear are attracted 
wherever a lively color, or a rousing animating sound, 
may strike them, and they turn, as if to inquire the 



18 Letters on Early Education, III 

cause of that sudden impression. A'ery soon the features 
of the child, and its redoubled attention, will betray 
the pleasure with which the senses are affected by the 
brilliant colors of a flower, or the pleasing sounds of 
music. Apparently the first traces are now making 
of that mental activity which will hereafter employ 
itself in the numberless observations and combinations 
of events, or in the search of their hidden causes, and 
which will be accessable to all the pleasing or painful 
sensations which life in its various shapes may excite, j 

Every mother will recollect the delight of her feelings 
on the first tokens of her infant's consciousness and 
rationality ; indeed maternal love knows not a higher 
joy than that arising from those interesting indica- 
tions. Trifling to another, to her they are of infinite 
value. To her they reveal an eventful futurity; they 
tell her the important story, that a spiritual being, 
dearer to her than life, is opening as it were the eye of 
intelligence and saying in its silent, but tender and 
expressive language, " I am born for immortality." 

But the last and highest joy, the triumph of mater- 
nal love, remains yet to be spoken of. It is the look 
of the child to the eye of the mother — that look so full 
of love, so full of hearty which speaks most emphatically [I 
of its elevation in the scale of being. It is now a 
subject for the best gift bestowed on human nature. 
The voice of conscience will speak within its breast; 



The Birth of Co:n^sciexce 19 

religion will assist its trembling steps and raise its 
eye to Heaven. With these convictions the heart of 
the mother expands with delight and solicitnde: she 
again hails in her offspring not merely the citizen of 
earth: " Thou art born," she cries, "for immortality 
and an immortality of happiness : such is the promise 
of thy heaven-derived faculties; such shall be the con- 
summation of thy Heavenly Father's love." 

These then are the first traces of human nature 
unfolding in the infantine state. The philosopher 
may take them as facts constituting an object of 'study : 
he may use them as the basis of a system ; but they are 
originally designed for the mother, — they are a hint 
from above, intended at once as her blessing and en- 
couragement : 

"For all her sorrows, all her cares, 
An over-payment of delight ! " 



LETTEE IV 

October 18, 1818. 
My Dear Greaves, 

When a mother has observed in her child the first 
traces of development, new questions suggests them- 
selves: — How sJiall these expanding faculties be directed f 
Which' of them call for the most diligent attention, and 
which may follow their natural course without requiring 
any peculiar care bestowed on their growth and regula- 
tion ? Which, too, have the most important bearing 
on the future welfare of the child ? 

The last question, I suppose, will be decided unani- 
mously in favor of the heart. I cannot suppose that 
any mother is so morally and intellectually blind as 
consciously to decide on providing for the external and 
temporal benefit of her child at the expense of his 
inward and eternal well-being. But she may never- 
theless be puzzled as to the relative importance of the 
faculties under her charge, and the consequent propor- 
tion of attention they separately demand. 

The heart has, indeed, a pre-eminent claim on her 
attention. But is not the child directed and admon- 

(20) 



Religious Tkainii^g 21 

ished by the voice of conscience within? Is he not 
able to decide the great question of right and wrong, 
merely by listening to this voice, without any partic- 
ular instruction from another? And will not the time 
arrive when he becomes receptive of the truths of 
Religion, to confirm that voice within, and to give 
him that moral elevation, the very idea of which is at 
present so far beyond his reach? 

It would not be difficult to answer these questions, 
and to put the whole subject in its true light. But I 
would not offer to a mother any detailed plan for her 
guidance, considering it as highly essential that she 
should feel herself untrammelled by anything like sys- 
tem, the principles of which, not being her own, might 
only prejudice and confine her opinions and practice, 
without convincing her of any fitness or adaptation in 
the given means to the end proposed. Why should 
her mind be merely the reflection of another's, whose 
views, perhaps, she can neither fathom nor appreciate? 
Is she not a mother? and has her Creator, in furnish- 
ing her with the springs of natural life for His chil- 
dren, left her unqualified for administering to that 
spiritual life which is the very end and essence of all 
being? Is her relation to humanity of so responsible 
a character, and shall not her intelligence and energy 
be concentrated in this one focus? Shall not her 
whole existence be absorbed in the exalted purpose. 



22 Letters on Early Education, IV 

the unwearying effort, to accomplish the end of her 
creation? Xature, benevolence, religion, all demand 
it! and so unanimously, as to set the question for 
ever at rest. 

I would entreat of every mother to take a general 
survey of life in all its varieties of aspect : and wherever 
happiness presents itself, not merely in semblance but 
in substance, then to pause and examine, if possible, 
how that happiness is constituted, and whence it 
originates. 

It is more than probable, that she will feel rather 
dissatisfied with the results of her first investigation ; 
she will find it almost impossible, amidst such distract- 
ing multiplicity of pursuits and of characters, to se- 
lect any specimens on which her eye might repose as it 
were from the scrutinizing search, and gather light 
truly illustrative of the subject. She would fain with- 
draw her contemplations from this scene of confusion, 
and direct them again into their former channel, to 
dwell with unmingled delight on that being so dear to 
her affections. 

But the dearer your child is to you, fond mother! 
the more urgently would I insist on your examining 
that life into which he will one day be thrown. Do 
you find it replete with danger? You must encompass 
him with a shield that shall preserve his innocence. 
Do you find it a maze of error? You must show him \ 



How Men^ gai:n^ Happiness 23 

that magic clue which shall lead to the fountain of 
truth. Do you find it lifeless, and dead, under all its 
busy superficies? You must try to nourish in him that 
spirit of activity which shall keep his powers alive, 
and impel him forwards to improve, though all 
around him should be lost in the habitual mechanism 
of a stationary idleness. Again, therefore, enquire 
what may be the experience life can afford you? Look 
for a moment at those who have distinguished them- 
selves from the rest of their species. Surely you would 
not wish your child to be one of the many of whom 
nothing can be said but that they lived and died, 
passing through life ingloriously, and uncharacterized 
by any quality, or any action than can dignify human- 
ity. Your child can be in no class of society where 
the most honorable distinction is not attainable. The 
fertile spreading tree, however low may be the valley 
it grows in, is not the less welcome to the way-worn 
traveller who hails its luscious fruits and grateful 
shades. 

Even among the inferior stations, you will find many 
who have really distinguished themselves by the in- 
dustry and energy displayed in their employment, 
however little may be its intrinsic dignity; but their 
skill and perseverance have gained and secured to them 
the attention and perhaps respect of their neighbors 
and superiors. 



24 Letteks on Early Educatioi^^, IV 

Others will arrest your observation, placed in the 
more exalted ranks of society, whose amazing grasp of 
intelligence will appear to you as almost supernatural. 
You may occasionally remark it compassing extraor- 
dinary ends, with ordinary and even limited means; 
directing with facility the helm of national power, or 
over-ruling the decisions of national wisdom, or stem- 
ming the currents of national policy ; and in these, or 
any other varieties of its character and action, you will 
have to admire the triumphs of mind. 

These prominent actors on the stage of life are to a 
great number, whose destiny seems to be in their power, 
objects of terror: but you will scarcely find any one 
disposed to withhold the tribute of admiration due to 
their lofty endowments. As their persons are regarded 
with respect^ or possibly with fmy, by others of their 
kind, so you will meet with many an individual who 
inspires his observers and acquaintances with no other 
sentiment than love : his natural goodness of disposi- 
tion, and his unvarying kindness of attention, will 
never fail of producing this appropriate effect : being 
every man's well-wisher, he has gained the secret of 
access to every man's affections. • 

Your own acquaintance will furnish you with the 
original of at least one individual in each of these 
three classes. 

Are they all happy, or any one superlatively so? 



LETTER V 

October 24, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

I do not mean to anticipate the answer of the 
mother. Bnt it is highly probable that her inquiries 
will terminate in sad conviction that none of the in- 
dividuals in question seem to be invested with that hap- 
piness, true, essential, and indisturbed, which she so 
ardently aspires after as the future portion of her 
child. 

Here, then, she will sigh over the imperfections of 
human nature, the inconsistencies of human pursuits. 
Is it possible, she will exclaim, that with all this fertility 
of genius, all this comprehension of mind, all these char- 
ities of heart, happiness should still be unattained? 

^ow this is precisely the point to which I would 
bring her. 

" How is it possible r^ is a phrase so common with us, 
that we quite forget its original meaning. It is a 
question, but we never fail to evade its legitimate 
answer. It is a question to ourselves, but we consciously 
shrink back from the task of meeting it with a fair and 
open reply. Let it be otherwise in the present in- 

(25) 



26 Letteks on^ Early Educatioint, V 

stance. Let the mother go on to examine the nature 
of this possibility, and she will soon be sensible of her 
approximation to the truth she is in search of. She 
must be aware that mere executive talent, however 
splendid; mere mental capacity, however vast; mere 
good nature, however diffusive, are still endowments 
infinitely inferior to the conditions of human happiness. 
And here I am about to allude to a fundamental error 
which prevails in education, as well as in our Judg- 
ment of men and things. 

What, I would ask, can be the true, intrinsic use of 
the utmost possible exertions unless regulated by ac- 
curacy of ideas, elevated and universal perceptions, and, 
above all, under the control of and founded on the 
noblest sentiments of the heart, a firm and steady will? 
And again, I ask, what can be the real use and merit of 
schemes however deep or ingenious, if the energy of 
exertion be not equal to the boldness and skill of the 
conception, or even if the two powers are combined 
but are not working for an end worthy of themselves 
and propitious to humanity? It is obvious then, that 
a mere cultivation of the talents of our animal and intel- 
lectual nature will be found absolutely inefficient as a 
substitute for the heart. 

This, then, will appear to be the true basis of human 
happiness. But I must even here warn you'against a 
possible mistake, by pointing out the features of a 



The True Standard of Activity 



•^v 



character likely to mislead you, and which is so often 
met with in our passage through life that none of us 
shall dispute the existence of an original. I refer to one 
whose mind is pregnant with good intentions, his heart 
overflowing with amiable dispositions, and his zeal ever 
ready to patronize and promote any worthy enterprize 
that has for its object the benefit of society. I need 
not name to you all the admirable points of such a 
character ; so much kindness, benevolence, and warmth, 
cannot fail of seeming to you irresistibly attractive. 
And yet it is a fact, but too often confirmed by ex- 
perience, that all this constellation of excellencies may 
glow and sparkle in vain ; that such a temperament, 
however finely constituted, may yet live and move to 
little purpose in reference to others, and to itself fail 
of securing that happiness which is asserted to be the 
inseparable concomitant of virtue. 

The reason is evident : the heart, the grand wheel in 
the human mechanism, may have been long and actively 
at work, but for want of being connected in due time 
with those other powers of human nature whose co- 
operation is equally essential it has failed of producing 
that health and vitality which would otherwise have 
pervaded the system. The faculties of man must be 
so cultivated that no one shall predominate at the ex- 
pence of another but each be excited to the true stand- 
ard of activity; and this dandard is the spirUwd mdure 
of man. 



28 Letters on^ Early Education, Y 

And here allow me to expatiate again on the princi- 
pal results of these important truths; again to touch 
upon them in order to the character I am addressing. 

" Happy mother ! thou art delighting thyself in the 
first efforts of thy child and they are delightful ; muse 
upon them; pass them not by, — they are the gems of 
future action; they are all-important to thee and to 
him, and should furnish thee with many a long train 
of prolific thought. 

" God has given to thy child all the faculties of our 
nature but the grand point remains yet undecided ! 
How shall this heart, this head, these hands, be em- 
ployed ? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A 
query, the answer to which involves a futurity of hap- 
piness or unhappiness to the life so dear to thee. 

" God has given thy child a spiritual nature; that is 
to say. He has implanted in him the voice of con- 
science ; and He has done more, — He has given him the 
faculty of attending to this voice. He has given him 
an eye whose natural turn is heavenward ; teaching 
thee, in this alone, the elevation of his destiny; and 
disclaiming for him all affinity to the inferior creatures 
whose downward looks speak as expressively of the 
earth whither they are tending. 

" Thy child, then, was created, not for earth, but 
for heaven. Dost thou know the way that leads 
thither? Thy child would never find it, nor would any 



The Spiritual Xature of Majs^ 29 

other mortal be able to lead the way, if divine mercy 
did not reveal it to him. But it is not enough to 
know this way ; thy child must learn to walk in it. 

" It is recorded, thou knowest, that God opened the 
heavens to one of the patriarchs of old, and showed him 
a ladder leading to their azure heights ! Well, this ladder 
is let down to every descendant of Abram ; it is tendered 
to thy child. But he must be taught to climb it. 
And let him take heed not to attempt it nor think to 
scale it by cold calculations of the head, — nor be com- 
pelled to adventure it by the mere impulse of the 
heart: — but let all these powers combine, and the 
noble enterprise will be crowned with success. 

" All these powers are already bestowed on him : but 
thine is the province to assist in calling them forth. 
Let the ladder leading to heaven be constantly before 
thine eyes, even the ladder of Faith^ on which thou 
mayest behold ascending and descending the angels of 
Hope and Love. ' ' 



LETTER VI 



October 31, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

Had I been more anxious, on some former occa- 
sions, to suit my words to the taste of the one, and to 
the theories of others, I might perhaps have secured 
the approbation of those who are at present inclined 
to put upon my principles a less favorable construc- 
tion, or to reject them altogether. But I have not 
been taught to refer to systems for the proof of what 
experience- suggested or practice confirmed to me. If it 
has been my lot, as I humbly hope that it has been, to 
light upon truths little noticed before, and principles 
which, though almost generally acknowledged, were 
yet seldom practised, I confess that I was little quali- 
fied for that task by the precision of my philosophical 
notions, but supported rather by a rich stock of ex- 
perience, and guided by the impulse of my heart. If, 
therefore, I am frequently recurring to an appeal to 
the feelings of a mother, you will easily conceive that, 
while I would court the examination of my principles 
by those who are qualified for it by intellectual superi- 

(30) 



Faith and Love in^ the Infai^t 31 

ority, I would yet look for sympathy chiefly to those 
whose exertions are kindred to mine, — being sprung 
from the same feelings, and directed to the same end. 

Let me then proceed to lay before you my views, 
not indeed with the elaborate accuracy that might sat- 
isfy the criticism of a stranger, but with the warmth 
that may speak to the heart of a friend. 

I would, in the first place, direct your attention to 
the existence and the early manifestation of a spirit- 
ual principle, even in the infant mind. I would put it 
in the strongest light, that there is in the child an 
active power of faith and love : the two principles by 
which, under the divine guidance, our nature is made 
to participate in the highest blessings that are in»store 
for us. And this power is not in the infant mind, as 
other faculties are, in a dormant state. While all 
other faculties, whether mental or physical, present 
the image of utter helplessness, of a weakness which in 
its first attempts at exertion only leads to pain and 
disappointment, that same power of faith and love dis- 
plays an energy, an intensity, which is never surpassed 
by its most successful efforts when in full growth. 

1 am fully aware that what I have called just now 
a principle of faith and love in the infant is frequently, 
and indeed generally, degraded by the name of a 
merely animal or instinctive feeling. But I confess 
that I look upon the instinctive agency of the infant. 



32 Letters ox Early Educatiox, VI 

in its first stage of existence, as the wonderful dispen- 
sation of a benign and all-wise Providence. In this 
wise, and, I repeat it, wonderful dispensation, we 
may indeed admire, with feelings of veneration, the 
free gift of the Creator to man — a gift which, however 
man may prevert it, is yet, in its primitive agency, an 
incalculable blessing. And if the feeling I am alluding 
to, be called animal, I confess that such appears to 
have been the intention of the Creator, that however 
low the first state of human existence might rank, it 
might yet adumbrate, in its primitive forms, the suc- 
cessive development of its spiritual nature. 

This principle, however, for the existence of which 
I cofitend, is by no means absolutely ripened and 
purified in the child. If it were to remain among the 
inferior faculties it would fail of acting as a constant 
preservative of faith and love. It must, therefore, 
derive its nourishment and increase from nature; it 
must be cherished by the sacred power of innocence 
and truth. This must constitute the atmosphere in 
which the child is living. 

This daily nourishment of the child's love and faith 
will in time unfold all the germs of the purest virtues. 
The infant is obedient, active, patient, — I should 
almost have said, wise and pious, before it has been 
taught to understand the nature or merit of these 



Gratitude, Sympathy, Resig:n^atiox 33 

virtues. The highest and strongest power of spiritual 
elevation of which the soul of man is capable under 
the influence of the divine doctrine of Christ, is com- 
municated to the child in tender infancy, by a kind of 
revelation. It has a foretaste of the most sublime vir- 
tues, the power of which it is not yet able to conceive. 

Thus the true dignity of Christianity may be said to 
be implanted in the child before it has an idea of the 
full growth of its yet tender germs in its breast. The 
sacred feeling of gratitude is active in the child in the 
moment of gratification, when it feels its animal life 
appeased and its animal wants supplied. The sacred 
power of sympathy, which is superior to the fear of 
danger and death, is active in the child: it would die 
in the arms of the mother, to relieve her from immi- 
nent pain, the feeling of which is strongly marked on 
her features, — it would die for her, before it could 
conceive what is sympathy, or death. In the child 
there is even an antepast of the feeling of tranquillity 
and delight which is the reward of a resignation of 
our own desires, of a subordination of all our hopes 
and wishes, under the supreme and ruling principles 
of love and faith. 

This act of resignation, trifling as may be its im- 
mediate object, is the first step towards the conscious 
and principled exercise of self-denial. 



34 Letters on Early Education, VI 

On the arms of the mother, the infant is actuated 
and as it were inspired by this principle, which may 
become its second nature while the mind is yet far 
from a consciousness of that power which, in its 
further development, may produce the most glorious 
efforts of self-denial. 



LETTER VII 

November 8, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

I have in my last letter stated it is my firm convic- 
tion that there is in the infant a principle which may, 
under the divine guidance, enable him not only to stand 
distinguished among his fellow-men, but also to fulfil 
the highest command of his Maker, to walk in the light 
of faith, and to have his heart overflowing with that 
love which " beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things," — the love 
which " never faileth." 

I have called this principle, even as it is manifested 
in the earliest stage of human life, a principle of love 
and faith. I am aware that these terms will meet with 
contradiction by some, and perhaps with derision by 
others. I should feel truly obliged to anyone who would 
give me two other terms more appropriate, — more ex- 
pressive of the idea that I have formed on the subject, 
after the closest and most earnest observation of many 
years. In the mean time, may I venture at least to 
hope that no one will deny the fact, merely on account 
of the insufficiency of the terms which I may have had 
the misfortune to apply to the description of it. 

(85) 



3G Letters ok Early Educatioi^, VII 

I shall try to explain my idea in a manner which will 
scarcely leave a doubt on the nature of the fact to 
which it is my wish to call the attention of all persons 
engaged in education. They will be ready to admit, 
from past experience, that if you treat a child with 
kindness, there is a greater chance of succeeding than 
if you try by any other means. 

Xow this is all that I would wish to have granted to 
me; and "on this simple and undeniable fact 1 would 
ground whatever there is of theory, or of principle, in 
my views on infant development. 

If you succeed by Jxindness^ more than by any other 
means, there must, I would say, be a something in the 
child that answers as it were to your call of kindness. 
Kindness must be the most congenial to his nature : 
kindness must excite a sympathy in his heart. Whence 
is that something derived ? I have no hesitation in 
saying, from the Giver of all that is good. It is indeed 
to that same j)rinciple in man that He has always ad- 
dressed His call, both by the voice of conscience, and 
whenever He has, by His infinite mercy, spoken to man- 
kind, '' at sundry times, and in divers manners ". 
And if otherwise, how are we to satisfy ourselves with 
regard to the meaning of the Divine authority, by 
which it is said, that " of such is the kingdom of 
Heaven;" and that, " Whosoever shall not receive the 






Effect of Kindn^ess 37 

kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter 
therein." 

We shall have the more reason to think so, if we 
consider the manner in which that power of kindness 
acts upon even the infant mind. 

If the infant were not actuated by any other impulse 
l)ut the mere instinct of self-preservation; if his at- 
tachment to the mother were grounded merely upon a 
consciousness of his helplessness, of his animal wants, 
and the observation that she was the first to relieve, 
to protect, to gratify them; if thence sprang his smile, 
and all the little tokens of affection so dear to the 
mother's heart; if the infant were really that selfish, 
calculating creature, turning to the gratification of his 
own desires the affection of others ; then indeed Avould 
1 cease for ever to speak of the stamina of love in his 
heart, or of the antepast, hoAvever distant, of faith; 
then would I cease for ever to address the mother as 
the principal agent in the cause of humanity. Such a 
cause then could no longer exist. Then I would no 
longer exhort her to weigh her duty, and to consider 
the means by which to accomplish it. Any means 
would do for what would then be her province, — to 
nurture up in her infant that same cold and unnatural 
selfishness which might be lurking in her owm bosom 
under the deceitful mask of maternal love. 



38 Letters on Early Education, VII 

But let the mother tell what her heart says to such 
a doctrine. Let her tell if she does not believe that 
God himself has implanted in her that feeling of 
maternal love. Let her tell if she does not feel her- 
self nearest to God in those moments in which her love 
is most intense and active ; and if it is not this feeling 
which alone enables her to be unremitting in her 
duties, and to undergo self-denials which have no 
name, which we may attempt to describe, but which 
none but a mother can feel, and none but a mother can 
undergo. Let her tell, whether she is not firmly con- 
vinced, by that same feeling, that there is, in the heart 
of her infant, a gratitude, and a confidence, and an 
attachment, which is better than selfish, which is im- 
planted as is her own love by her Heavenly Father. 

I know the cold and heartless doctrine which does 
not deny the existence of such a feeling, but which 
accounts for it by calling it a salutary deception, in- 
tended to induce the mother to be careful in the fulfil- 
ment of her duty. Have I called this doctrine cold 
and heartless ? Then let me add that I do not wish 
to cast an imputation on those who may hold it, from 
whatever motives it may be : but I cannot bring myself 
to sympathize with them. 

Let others advocate the theory that evil may be done 
that good may come of it. Let man try to palliate by 
this theory his own weakness : but let him not presume 



Matek:n^al Love 39 

to transfer that principle to the works of Him who is 
all wisdom, all power, and all love. 

Xo: I will never believe that God, to endear to her 
by a pleasing delusion her difficult and often painful 
duty, — I will never believe that the Father of Truth has 
implanted a lying spirit in the heart of the mother. 



LETTEE VIII 



]S^OVEMBEIl 15, 1818. 

My dear Ge'eaves, 

I would call upon the mother to be thankful to God 
that He has so much facilitated her task by implant- 
ing in her infant's heart those germs which, under 
His guidance and with His blessing, it will be her duty 
to develop, to protect, and to strengthen, until they 
may be matured into real fruits of faith and love. 

For it will be her task in a world of corruption to 
guard infant innocence, and to mature it into princi- 
ple. In a world of inconstancy, of distrust, of unbe- 
lief, it will be incumbent on her to be assiduous that 
the serene, the amiable security of that innocence with 
which it now reposes in her arms, may one day grow 
into unshaken confidence in all that is good here be- 
low, and in all that is sacred above. And in a world 
of selfishness, hers will be the care to direct and expand 
the instinctive attachment of her infant into the spring 
of active benevolence, which in a good cause will 
shrink from no self-denials, and think no sacrifice too 

great. 

(40) 



Innate Xobleness 41 

How could she hope to succeed in this, the great end 
of education, if the Creator had not instructed the 
child with those faculties which will admit of judicious 
direction and development ? The requisite for educa- 
tion does not consist only in the qualification of those 
who undertake the task ; it consists in the qualification 
of the child also, in whose nature that must be found 
which proclaims louder than anything else the great 
end of Infinite Wisdom in the creation of man. First 
of all, therefore, let the mother rejoice that whatever 
may be the weakness of human nature, however great 
may be the temptations, yet there is in her child a 
something, the origin of which, as a gift of God, dates 
prior to temptation or to corruption. Let her re- 
joice, that in her child there is that, which 

" nor prems, nor stores of gold, 

"^ Nor purple state, nor culture, can bestow: 
But GOD alone !— when first His active hand 
Imprints the secret bias of the soul." 

But will this doctrine be equally acceptable to all as 
it is to myself, and as I trust that it will be to you ? 

I have heard it said, my dear friend, that there are 
many in my own country, and in yours, who will reject 
it altogether, because they will say that it is not ortho- 
dox. 

Xow I would ask who the men are who think they 
are privileged to say that their views alone are ortJio- 
dox f that their doctrine alone, to the exclusion of all 



42 Letters on Early Education, VIII 

others, is the right one ? I could wish them to come 
forward and tell us what are their credentials; cre- 
dentials, not indeed signed by the hand of men, how- 
ever wise, for the wisest are liable to error; — however 
powerful, for the most powerful may be tempted into 
pride; — but testimonials that will fully bear them out 
in their assumed character as the exclusive owners, as 
the sole interpreters of His truth who wishes all His 
children " to take the water of life freely;" and not 
^' hew out cisterns that have no water," nor to be 
" tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind 
of doctrine." If they have any such credentials, it is 
fit that we should know them, and bow to their author- 
ity. If not, it is fit, at least, that they should not 
pretend to what does not belong to them, any more 
than it does to us, — exclusive authority, — and that 
they should, in their turn, grant to us what nobody 
will think of withholding from them — the right of 
freedom of conscience and private judgement. 

I do indeed hope, that the time is at length come 
when it will no longer be asked whether a theory does 
or does not agree with the interest of one class of men, 
or with the preconceived opinions of another; but, 
whether it rests on observation, on experience, on a 
right use of reason and an unbiased view of revelation ; 
disdaining the comments of men, and acknowledging, 
as its only basis, the word of God. 



Orthodox Belief tx Ixjs^ate Depravity 43 

Thus I would meet one class of objections. But I 
anticipate another class of doubts, of a far different 
nature, — not arising from a disposition in those who 
hold them to over-rate their own judgment, and con- 
sequently to slight that of others ; but rather from the 
consideration of the weakness of all human reasoning, 
and from an unwillingness to part with views which 
have been adopted in early youth, and conscientiously 
preserved as the sacred legacy perhaps of those who 
are no more ; views which have grown upon their es- 
teem, and which are now connected with the best in- 
terests of their heart, because they have seen those who 
held them set an example which no event ever 
obliterate from their memory, and which no difficulty 
shall ever discourage them from imitating. 

I can easily fancy that upon similar grounds a 
mother might be inclined not so much to dispute the 
correctness of tlie theory, but rather to question the 
right of giving way to it in opposition to what she has 
been in the habit of revering as uncontroverted truth. 
" Shall she abandon princi})les held by tiiose who 
watched with anxiety the first dawn of her own mind, 
when an infant, and who were unremitting in their 
exertions to form it, and to direct it to truth ? Shall 
she give up her mind to the examination of theories, 
and those perhaps the theories of a stranger, rather 
than follow the wishes of her friends ? Is it so neces- 



44 Letters ox Early Educattox, YIII 

sary to inquire into the existence of facts, instead of 
being guided by the practice of those whom experience 
has taught her to respect, and whom her heart prompts 
her to love ? Should it be so difficult to succeed ? 
should not maternal love make up for a deficiency of 
knowledge? And, if so, God forbid that her princi- 
ples of education should in any way be connected with 
views which she has been taught to consider as erron- 
eous, perhaps as dangerous and altogether opposite to 
divine truth."' 

To such doubts, and thus brought forward, I should 
answer: " Mother! I congratulate you on your 
doubts, although they tend to alienate you from views 
which I hold, and which thousands have held before 
me. But your doubts betray that feeling to which uf 
all others I should wish to see the heart of every mother 
alive. Do not then turn away on your arduous path 
from the proffered hand of one who, though he partici- 
pates not in your reasoning, yet honors your feelings, 
and would fain assist you, as far as in him lies, in your 
endeavors. It is probable that I may never know you. 
My days may be numbered, my glass may be run, long 
before you may chance to hear that in a far distant 
land, in a valley between his native Alps, there lived, 
and lived to old age, a man who knew not a cause of 
higher interest or of greater importance than that 
in Avhich you are now engaged; whose life has been 



Pestalozzi's Picture of Himself 45 

spent in endeavors, weak perhaps, but in which was 
concentrated all his strength, to assist in their task the 
mothers and those who may act in their place, and 
those on whom may develop the duty of guiding the 
mind at a more advanced period of youth; a man, 
who wishes that others may take up what he has com- 
menced, and succeed where he may have failed; who 
trusts that his friends will speak where his voice could 
not have gained a hearing, and act where his own 
efforts would have passed unnoticed; a man who 
firmly believes that there is an invisible tie to unite 
all those whose hearts have embraced the same sacred 
cause, and who would hail with delight their appear- 
ance, to whatever nation they may belong, to whatever 
opinions they may be addicted; a man, who, in his 
dreams, (and, if dreams they were, more pleasing 
dreams there cannot exist,) has thought of such as you, 
whose heart is warm, whose piety is genuine, but who 
differ from him, and perhaps widely, in opinion. 

'' And on account of that difference, should there 
be no communion between us ? 

" Do not think that I have a wish to make you a 
convert to my opinions. Xo, never swerve for one 
moment from the principles which you now follow 
from motives that reasoning alone may suggest, unless 
your heart concur in it. Let this be the test by which 
you examine the notions that you may hear from 



46 Letters ox Early Education, VIII 

others; and always act up to the best of your knowl- 
edge, as your conscience directs you. 

" Let this be the test by which you examine the 
ideas now before you. Adopt of them as much as your 
heart wdll warrant you. As to the rest of them, you 
may perhaps be inclined to believe that they have 
proceeded from conviction as sincere, and from inten- 
tions no less benevolent. 

" But you may consider them erroneous, — some of 
them, perhaps, even mischievous. You may even 
lament that those should have held them whom you 
might wish to meet on a ground where you now must 
secede from them. 

" I, for my own part, rejoice that my creed does 
not countenance any such apprehension in me with re- 
gard to you. For it is my hope, in which I rejoice, 
that those who have been earnest in their wish and 
steadfast in their attempts to do good, not indeed rely- 
ing upon any strength or merit of their own, but 
acknowledging their own failings, and giving God the 
glory of their success; it is my hope, that they may, 
in humbleness of heart, ^but with the confidence of 
faith, address themselves, "^in every situation of their 
life, and in their expectation for days to come, to 
Divine Mercy." 



LETTER IX 

November 20, 1818. 
My Dear Greaves, 

I shall try in this, and in some subsequent letters, 
to describe the facts which may be considered as the 
first manifestation of the good principle of which I 
have spoken. I shall then proceed to point out the 
common mistake by which it is frequently either alto- 
gether overlooked, or even perverted by injudicious 
treatment, so that, instead of acting as a moral pre- 
servative, instead of being instrumental to the spiritual 
elevation, it is rendered contributive to the corruption 
of the best powers of human nature. 

It will be unpleasant to dwell upon this topic; it 
will be necessary to allude to the source of all the 
mental and moral misery which our flesh is heir to; it 
will be indispensable to convince many a fond mother, 
that what was well meant is not always well done, and 
strongly to impress upon her mind the fact that by a 
mode of proceeding flowing from the most benevolent 
motives, but which would not have stood the test of a 
matured judgment, she may entail on her children all 
that misery against which it was her only wish to pro- 
tect them. 

(47) 



48 Letters ox Early Education, IX 

But if, in going over the ground now before us, Ave 
shall have frequent occasion to lament the short-sight- 
edness of some, and the indolence of others, we shall 
also have occasion to rejoice that the means by Avhich 
so much misery may be avoided, and by which a still 
greater portion of happiness may be secured, are by no 
means out of the reach of the mother. Indeed, when- 
ever I have met with a mother who distinguished 
herself by the care which she gave to the education of 
her children, and by the success which she obtained, 
I have always found that the principles upon which 
she acted and the means which she employed were 
not the result of a long and difficult search, but rather 
of a resolution adopted in time, and constantly fol- 
low^ed, to do no step without pausing for a moment to 
reflect : and I have not found that this led to an over- 
anxiety on her part, or to that state of continual agita- 
tion which we sometimes observe preying on the heart 
of a mother who is always calculating the remote con- 
sequences of trifles with almost feverish apprehension. 

This last mentioned state of mind, which must mar the 
cheerfulness of her spirits so essential for a judicious 
and effective education, generally ensues upon a prior 
want of discretion, that may have led to consequences 
which, in their turn, give rise to needless apprehen- 
sions. Xothing, on the contrary, is so w^ell calculated 
to secure to the mind an imperturbable tranquillity 



The Xew-Born^ Child 49 

as a timely exercise of judgment and a constant habit 
of reflection. 

I know not if philosophers wonld think it worth 
their while, but I feel confident that a mother would 
not decline following us to the consideration of the 
state in which the infant remains for some time after 
his birth. 

This state, in the first place, strikes us as a state of 
utter helplessness. The first impression seems to be 
that of pain, or, at least, of a sensation of uneasiness. 
There is not yet the slightest circumstance that might 
remind us of any other faculties except those of the 
animal nature of man ; and even these are in the very 
lowest stage of development. 

Still there is in this animal nature an instinct which 
acts with greater security, and which increases in 
strength as the functions of animal life are repeated, 
day by day : this animal instinct has been known to 
make the most rapid progress, and to arrive very early 
at the highest point of strength and intensity, even 
when little or no attention has been paid to protect the 
infant from surrounding dangers, or to strengthen it 
by more than ordinary nourishment and care. It is a 
well-known fact that among savage nations the animal 
powers of children are capable of exertion and are de- 
veloping with a rapidity which proves sufficiently that 
this part of human nature goes altogether parallel 



50 Letters ox Early Education, IX 

with the instinct in the rest of the animal creation. 

So striking is this similarity, that we frequently find 
every attempt to discover any trace of another faculty 
treated with ridicule. Indeed while Ave are assiduous 
in our attention to that part of human nature in the 
earliest stage of life which would recjuire but little of 
our care, Ave are but too apt to OA^erlook and to neg- 
lect that which in its first appearance is certainly very 
weak, but which is, by its very Aveakness, entitled to 
our care and support, and Avhich may Avell ins|)ire us 
Avith an interest in its development that Avill amply 
reward us for our labors. 

Eor, striking as this similarity may be, Ave can never 
be justified in overlooking the distinction that exists 
betAveen the infant, even in the first era of life, and 
the animal, which apparently may have made a more 
rapid progress, and may be far superior in qualifica- 
tions which constitute a sound and comfortable state 
of animal existence. 

The animal Avill for ever remain on that point of 
bodily strength and sagacity to which its instinct has 
conducted it so rapidly. For the Avhole duration of 
its life, its enjoyments, and exertions, and, if we may 
say so, its attainments, will remain stationary. It may 
through old age, or through unfavorable circumstances, 
be thrown back ; but it will never advance beyond that 
line of physical perfection which is attendant on its 



The Animal Xature must k^ot Rule 51 

full growth. A new faculty, or an additional agency 
of t]ie former ones, is an event unheard of in the 
natural history of the animal creation. 

It is not the same with man. 

In him there is something which will not fail, in due 
time, of making itself manifest by a series of facts al- 
together independent of animal life. While the animal 
is for ever actuated by that instinct to which it owes 
its preservation and all its powers and enjoyments, a 
something will assert its right in man to hold the em- 
pire over all his powers ; to control the lower part of 
his nature, and to lead him to those exertions which 
will secure for him a place in the scale of moral being. 

The animal is destined by the Creator to follow the 
instinct of its nature. Man is destined to follow a 
higher principle. His animal nature must no,, longer 
be permitted to rule him, as soon as his spiritual 
nature has commenced to unfold. 

It will be the object of my next letter to point out 
to the mother the epoch at which she may expect the 
first tokens of a spiritual nature in her infant. 



LETTER X 

November 27, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

I have frequently heard it observed that there is 
not a more humiliating consideration than that of the 
first condition of man, when he has entered this world 
a helpless stranger, equally unable to speak his wants, 
or to think of supplying them, or to give any token by 
which he might be recognized as a member of the 
rational creation. 

I admit that all this must strongly remind us of the 
weakness of our nature, that it may guard us against 
the presumption of trusting in our own powers ; and I 
think it right to encourage any reflection which may 
call back to our mind what we are but too apt to forget. 
But though this consideration is by no means flattering 
to our vanity, yet I cannot see why it should be so 
peculiarly humiliating. 

Let the case be put as strongly as observation may 
warrant us to do. Let it be granted that weeks must 
pass before the infant will give any proof of any 
faculty superior to those of irrational animals. Let it 

(52) 



Helplessness of the Infant 5;j 

be added that no animal is so physically helpless, so 
destitute of power, as the infant for some time after 
his birth. And thus let the commencement of human 
life occupy the lowest place even in the scale of mere 
animal existence. 

Still I confess that, in a moral point of view, I can- 
not find any thing humiliating in this fact. 

To see a rationed being brutedized — that indeed may be 
called the severest lesson to anyone who has a wish to 
vindicate the moral character of human nature. But 
this most humiliating observation will bear no compari- 
son with the fact now before us. 

For who is not aware of the immense difference be- 
tween a state of animal existence to which the mani- 
festation of spiritual life will succeed, and a high 
moral and responsible existence in which the germs 
of that life have been suppressed, and blighted. In the 
one instance, we look forward to progressive elevation ; 
in the other, we turn away from successive degrada- 
tion. Before the light of intelligence has appeared, 
before the voice of conscience has spoken, neither error 
nor corruption can exist; but where the one has been 
darkened, and the other is slighted, there may we 
lament over the blindness, the selfishness of man. 

Instead therefore of dwelling exclusively on the 
want of an intellectual and moral principle, we ought 
rather to watch its first appearance ; instead of reviling 



54 Letters ox Early Edtjcatio;n^, X 

the work of the Creator, we ought to acknowledge his 
wisdom in opening at whateA^er period it may please 
Him the eyes of his creatures, and unclosing to them 
both a visible world full of miracles, and a spiritual 
world full of blessings: instead of complaining, than 
which nothing can be more wrong and more unwise, 
that He has not created us more perfect, we ought 
rather to examine ourselves, how far we are still from 
that point of perfection which He has placed within 
our reach. 

I have said thus much because the subject affords 
frequent scope to thoughtless and frivolous remarks, 
which might perhaps in some measure contribute to 
dampen the zeal and interest of mothers. But I trust 
that a mother will always consult her own experience : 
and her ow^n heart, rather than the sophistry of those 
who cannot feel with her. 

Let her then consider the stranger on her breast as 
a being destined for a better existence than the one in 
which he now unconsciously looks up to her for that 
support which Providence has placed it in her means 
to give. Let her not only follow that instinctive 
affection which could not allow her to be insensible 
to the wants of her infant ; let her look forward to the 
time in which her infant shall be alive to a sense of 
duty in this, and to hope for another world : and let 
her not forget that while such is the destination of 



Joy ant> Sympathy are Man's 55 

her infant, on her involves the task of preparing and 
of teaching him the first and most difficnlt steps of 
his path. 

And when the first weeks of anxiety on her part, and 
of nnconscionsness on that of her infant, are over; 
when the attention which is required, becomes mo- 
notonous and wearying; then will the mother feel a 
longing for something to animate the scene, to en- 
chance the interest and to encourage her to new 
exertions. 

Xor shall she be disappointed; for the day will 
come, when the infant will no longer apply to the 
mother only because her attention and her support 
are to him a source of animal gratification. The day 
will come when his eye will catch the eye of the 
mother ; when it will read there a language new and 
yet not unknown; when that look of love w411 call into 
life the first smile to play round the lips of the infant. 

With this fact a new era begins in the infant's life. 
With it a new world opens to his view. He has 
entered a new stage of existence ; he has vindicated his 
character as a being superior to the rest of the animal 
creation. 

The smile of joy and the tear of sympathy are denied 
to the animal race. They are given to man ; they con- 
stitute a tacit language, common to all and understood 



56 Letters ox Early Education, X 

because felt by all. They are the earliest signs of 
feelings which belong exclusively to man. 

They are the early witnesses whose meaning cannot 
be mistaken of internal emotions. The character of 
these emotions may change ; they may be momentary 
or permanent and their objects may extend to endless 
variety; but the signs which Nature has appointed for 
them remain the same; and thus they will continue 
through life the never-failing indexes of feeling, 
whether it be clouded in silent grief, or wrapped in 
tranquil serenity; whether it make the bosom throb 
with agony, or heave with delight. 



LETTEE XI 

December o, 1818. 
My dear Greayes, 

I have tried in my last letter to justify on philo- 
sophical grounds the importance which every mother 
is inclined to attach to the epoch when the eye of her 
infant for the first time meets her own ; when the ex- 
pression of love in her own countenance for the first 
time calls into play a similar expression in the features 
of the infant. 

This fact, which a mother will always hail with a de- 
light inconceivable to those who cannot share in her 
feelings, may lead her to a train of considerations 
which she will never repent of having duly weighed, 
and in which I shall now attempt to follow her. 

The first great truth, which cannot but strike her 
at the very outset, is this : — it was by kindness, by a 
manifestation of maternal love, that she has produced 
the first visible impression on the eye and the features 
of her infant. She will be fully justified by experience, 
if she recognizes in this impression the first influence 
of her individual conduct on the mind and the heart 

of the infant. 

(57) 



58 Letters on Early Education, XI 

Let her never lose sight of this fact. Providence by 
ordering that it should be thus in the course of nature 
has pointed out to her a leading truth, if she will but 
advert to it, which she may lay down as a never-f ailing- 
principle of education. Ii\ the formation of character, 
as well as in the mode of giving instruction, kindness 
ought to be the first and ruling principle. It certainly 
is the most powerful. Fear may do much, and other 
motives may be employed with apparent success ; but 
to interest the mind and to form the heart, nothing is 
so permanently influential as affection : it is the easiest 
way to attain the highest ends. 

I have called the fact of which I am now speaking 
a manifestation of the spiritual nature in man. As 
such, it will invite the mother to take a new view of 
her relation to the child. 

Her child is, like herself, a being endowed with 
spiritual faculties — with faculties superior to and in a 
great measure independent of animal life. The less 
they are developed in their present state, the greater 
is the attention which they require. 

Providence has instructed her with the means of 
supplying the animal wants of the child. We have 
seen that the child also is instructed with an animal 
instinct, which facilitates the task. But the eye of 
the child when it meets that of the mother does not 
seek for the mere gratification of a present want, or 



Kindness the Euling Prixciple 59 

for relief from a present sensation of uneasiness: it 
seeks for something more ; it speaks of the first want 
of spiritual nature ; it seeks for sympathy. 

The animal instinct is a principle which knows no 
higher object than self. Self-preservation is the first 
point which it tries to secure ; and in its progressive 
desire of enjoyment self is still the centre of its agency. 

It is not the same with the mind or with the affec- 
tions of the heart. The fact which speaks most 
unquestionably for the spiritual nature of man is the 
sacrifice of personal comfort or enjoyment for the hap- 
piness of others ; the subordination of individual desire 
to higher purposes. 

A moral philosopher has said that whenever the mind 
reflects on the future or the invisible in preference to 
the present and to visible objects, then the spirit as- 
serts its right. 

If we connect this observation with the preceding 
remarks, we may deduce from them a few plain and 
practical rules by which the mother may be enabled 
without any pretensions to deep and laborous research 
to do much that will prove truly beneficial to the 
highest interests of her infant and to the better part 
of its nature. 

Any measure that we would recommend her at so 
early a period must of course be practicable without 
anything like instruction; it must not induce her to 



(50 Letters ox Early Education, XI 

go out of the way which Providence has assigned to 
her; it must not be of a nature that could be modified 
or rendered more difficult by her situation in life, Avhat- 
ever it may be : it must in fact be limited to the man- 
ner and the spirit in which that is done which every 
mother has both the wish and the faculty of doing for 
her infant. 



LETTER XII 

December 8, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

We have seen that the animal instinct is always 
intent on instantaneous gratification, without ever ad- 
verting to the comfort or interest of others. 

As long as no other faculty is awake, this instinct 
and its exclusive dominion over the child cannot prop- 
erly be considered as faulty ; there is not yet any con- 
sciousness in it : if it be selfish in appearance, it is 
not wilfully so ; and the Creator himself seems to have 
ordained that it should be so strong, and indeed 
exclusively prevailing, while consciousness and other 
faculties could not yet contribute to secure even the 
first conditions of animal life — self-preservation. 

But if after the first indication of a higher principle 
this instinct be still allowed to act unchecked and un- 
controlled as before, then it will commence to be at 
war with conscience, and every step in which it is 
indulged will carry the child farther in selfishness, at 
the expense of his better and more amiable nature. 

I wish this to be clearly understood; and I shall 
(61) 



62 Letters ois" Early Education, XII 

perhaps better succeed in explaining the rules which I 
conceive to flow from it for the use of the mother, 
than in dwelling longer on the abstract position. In 
the first place, let the mother adhere steadfastly to the 
good old rule, to be regular in her attention to the 
infant ; to pursue as much as possible the same course ; 
never to neglect the wants of her child when they are 
real, and never to indulge them when they are imag- 
inary, or because they are expressed with importunity. 
The earlier and the more constant her adherence to 
this practice, the greater and the more lasting will be 
the real benefit for her child. ^ 

The expediency and the advantages of such a plan 
will soon be perceived, if it is constantly practised. 

^'^" It seems plain to me that the principle of all vir- 
tue and excellence lies in a power of denying ourselves 
the satisfaction of our own desires, where reason does 
not authorize them. This power is to be got and im- 
proved by custom, made easy and familiar by an earhi 
'practice. If, therefore, I might be heard, I would ad- 
vise that, contrary to the ordinary way, children 
should be used to submit their desires and go with- 
out their longings even from their early cradles. If the 
world commonly does otherwise, I cannot help that. I 
am saying what I think should be done, which, if it 
were already in fashion, I sho'uld not need to trouble 
the world with a discourse on this subject." — Locke on 
Education, ^ 28. 



Education" ij^ Self-Dekial 6e3 

The first advantage will be on the part of the mother. 
She will be subject to fewer interruptions; she will be 
less tempted to give way to ill-humor ; though her pa- 
tience may be tried, yet her temper will not be ruffled: 
she will upon all occasions derive real satisfaction from 
her intercourse with her child; and her duties will not 
more often remind her than her enjoyments that she 
is a mother. 

But the advantage will be still greater on the part of 
the child. 

Every mother will be able to speak from experience 
either to the benefit which her children derived from 
such a treatment or to the unfavorable consequences 
of a contrary proceeding. In the first instance their 
wants will have been few and easily satisfied; and 
there is not a more infallible criterion of perfect good 
health. But if on the contrary that rule has been neg- 
lected ; if from a wish to avoid anything like severity 
a mother has been tempted to give way to unlimited 
indulgence, it will but too soon appear that her treat- 
ment, however well-meant, has been injudicious. It 
will be a source of constant uneasiness to her without 
giving satisfaction to her child; she will have sacrificed 
her own rest without securing the happiness of her 
ohild. 

Let the mothers who have been unfortunate enough 
to fall into this mistake tell whether they have not had 



64 Lettees oin" Early Education, XII 

frequent occasion to repent of their ill-timed indul- 
gence, unless they had the still greater misfortune of 
substituting in its place the other extreme — a habit of 
indolence and cold neglect. And let the children who 
were brought up in early youth under an excess of 
indulgence, tell whether they have not been suffering 
under the consequences; whether hurrying on from 
excitement to excitement, they have ever felt that 
health and tranquillity, that evenness of spirits, which 
is the first requisite to rational enjoyment and to last- 
ing happiness. 

Let them tell whether such a system is apt to give a 
relish for the innocent sports, for the never-to-be- 
forgotten feats of boyhood ; whether it imparts energy 
to withstand the temptation, or to share in the noble 
enthusiam of youth ; whether it ensures firmness and 
success to the exertions of manhood. 

We are not all born to be philosophers; but we 
aspire all to a sound state both of mind and body, and 
of this the leading feature is — to desire little, and to be 
satisfied ivith even less. 



LETTER XIII 

December 12, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

The greatest benefit that results from a treatment 
of the child such as the good old rule enjoins is of a 
moral nature. 

When I speak of moral benefit or of moral deteriora- 
tion, I do not lose sight of the tender age to which I 
would ascribe it. I am not now speaking of a child in 
whom reason has in some degree been developed, and 
to whom you may attempt with some hope of success 
to explain the ideas of right or wrong on which our 
private duties and the fabric of our social system are 
founded. 

No; I am speaking of that period of infancy at 
which many and perhaps most philosophers would con- 
tend that a moral faculty is either totally wanting or 
at least dormant. 

If, therefore, what I have to say on the subject shall 
appear altogether visionary, I have only to reply that 
I am ready to give it up whenever I shall stand con- 
victed of its nullity by experience. 

(65) 



66 Letters on Early Education, XIII 

Till then I mean to hold that the better nature of 
the infant must be encouraged as early as possible to 
struggle against the over-growing power of the animal 
instinct, which I consider as the basis of the lower 
nature of man. 

The agency of this animal instinct will become more 
manifest with every subsequent day of the infant's life. 
This instinct, now no more content with its first 
efforts which were necessary to self-preservation, is 
rapidly increasing in strength. The eagerness of this 
crainng of an infant form.'^ a stroiig contrast with the weaJc- 
ness of its physical poivers. It would grasp every object 
which it perceives; there is nothing that strikes its 
curiosity but that at the same time excites its desires ; 
and the inconceivable obstinacy of this craving in- 
creases in the same measure as the object is placed out 
of its reach. 

AYhatever there is ungainly and unamiable in a little 
child Avill be found in some way or other connected 
with the agency of this animal instinct. For even the 
impatience of the infant while under the influence of 
circumstances which may cause physical pain, is no 
more than a reaction of that instinct. 

If we consider the state of the infant, with its desires 
and its impatience, we shall see that it furnishes a 
striking parallel to the image of man under the influ- 
ence of his passions. 



XoT Fear but Love 67 

It is customary to say that passion should be over- 
come by principle, and that our desires should be regu- 
lated by reason. But at a time when we cannot yet 
appeal to either, Providence has supplied a still more 
powerful agent in their stead, — maternal love. 

The only influence to which the heart is accessible 
long before the understanding could have adopted or 
rejected it as a motive, is affection. And it is a fact 
that no person can be so well qualified at an early 
period to gain the affection of a child as the mother. 

If, therefore, I find it asserted by an eminent writer 
that in order to settle your authority over your chil- 
dren, " Fear and awe ought to give you the first power 
over their minds, and love and friendship in riper 
years to hold it^' " — I can only imagine, that a mistake 
has led that writer into a statement which is openly at 
war with the enlightened sentiments expressed in so 
many other pages of his valuable work. 

For even supposing for a moment, that the course 
which appears to be recommended in the above passage 
were found expedient and beneficial, as I am convinced 
that it will not be, still I cannot see how" it should even 
be practicable at the time that I am speaking of. 

"Fear" implies a knowledge of the consequences 
of an action or an eveiit. It implies a consciousness 



^ Locke, §42. 



C)S Letters on Early Education, XIII 

of causality; and causality, in its turn, pre-supposes a 
faculty of observing, comparing, and combining a 
variety of facts, and of deducing from them a con- 
clusion. 

Surely the ingenious writer from whom I have 
quoted could not have given credit to the infant for a 
course of reasoning so complicated, so foreign to the 
state of its mental faculties. 

" Fear," then, we shall be obliged to dismiss at 
once. Even if it were net, as a motive of action, un- 
worthy of a human being, it would be inapplicable at 
the first and certainly not the least important period 
of life. 

By " awe " may be understood either an indistinct 
and vague feeling, which casts a veil over the mind, 
and while it works upon the imagination and the nerv- 
ous system, has nothing to do with reasoning, and is 
not fit to direct the faculties to a certain line of action ; 
or else, " awe " may be said to originate in a convic- 
tion of the moral superiority of another being that per- 
vades the mind and prompts the heart to look with 
veneration on subjects which the intellect is unable to 
scan, and to follow precepts which have received their 
sanction from Infinite Wisdom. 

That awe, in the first mentioned sense, has some 
affinity with the first sensations of an infant, I admit. 
But everything of that sort that may be said to belong 



Parej^ts not to be held in Awe 69 

to infancy originates in a feeling of helplessness, or of 
occasional pain. It may then be said to be a mere 
physical phgenomenon : and as snch I conceive that it 
wonld be little qualified for a motive to be employed 
in moral education. But besides, it could not serve as 
a motive, because from its nature it is a mere tran- 
sient sensation, and cannot of course lead to a constant 
line of conduct, or contribute to form a moral habit. 
Awe, in the other sense, again seems to pre-suppose 
more than one idea to which the infant is yet and must 
for some time continue to be a stranger. Moral worth 
can only be appreciated when there is a consciousness 
of moral energy. And if divested from its character 
as a moral feeling, it will be dissolved into fear. But 
in the better sense the feeling of awe, which is essential 
in the formation of religious ideas and in the communi- 
cation of religious impressions, ought to be reserved for 
that period when it will be first excited by a considera- 
tion of that Being to Whom with the exclusion of all 
finite beings, that feeling may be said to be due in a 
pre-eminent degree. 



LETTER XIV 

December 17, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

From the reasons stated in my last letter, I think it 
right to assume that maternal love is the most power- 
ful agent, and that affection is the primitive motive in 
early education. 

In the first exercise of her authority, the mother will 
therefore do well to be cautious that every step may 
be justified by her conscience and by experience; she 
will do well to think of her responsibility, and of the 
important consequences of her measures for the future 
welfare of her child ; she will find that the only correct 
view of the nature of her own authority is to look upon 
it as a duty rather than as a prerogative, and never to 
consider it as absolute. 

If the infant remains quiet, if it is not impatient or 
troublesome, it will do so for the sake of the mother. 

I would wish every mother to pay attention to the 
difference between a course of action adopted in com- 
pliance with the authority and a conduct pursued for 

the sale of another. 

(70) 



Affection the Pkimitive Motive 71 

The first j^i'oceecls from reasoning, the second flows 
from affection. The first may be abandoned, when the 
immediate cause may have ceased to exist ; the latter 
will be permanent, as it did not depend upon circum- 
stances or accidental considerations, but is founded in a 
moral and constant principle. 

In the case now before us, if the infant does not 
disappoint the hope of the mother it will be a proof, 
first of affection, and secondly, of confidence. 

Of affection — for the earliest and the most innocent 
wish to please is that of the infant to please the 
mother. If it be questioned whether that wish can at 
all exist in one so little advanced in development, I 
would again, as upon almost all occasions, appeal to 
the experience of mothers. 

It is a proof also of confidence. Whenever an in- 
fant has been neglected, when the necessary attention 
has not been paid to its wants, and when, instead of 
the smile of kindness, it has been treated with the 
frown of severity, it will be difficult to restore it to 
that quiet and amiable disposition in which_^it will wait 
for the gratification of its desires without impatience, 
and enjoy it without greediness. 

If affection and confidence have once gained ground 
in the heart, it will be the first duty of the mother to 
do everything in her power to encourage, to strengthen, 
and to elevate this principle. 



72 Letters on Early Education, XIY 

She must encourage it, or the yet tender emotion 
will subside, and the strings which are no longer at- 
tuned to sympathy will cease to vibrate and sink into 
silence. But affection has never yet been encouraged 
except by affection; and confidence has never been 
gained except by confidence : the tone of her own mind 
must raise that of her child's. 

For she must be intent also upon strengthening that 
principle. Xow there is one means only for strength- 
ening any energy, and that means is practice. The 
same effort, constantly repeated, will become less and 
less difficult, and every power, mental or physical, will 
go through a certain exercise with more assurance and 
success, the more it grows familiar with it by custom. 
There cannot, therefore, be a safer course for the 
mother to pursue than to be careful that her proceed- 
ings may without interruption or dissonance be calcu- 
lated to excite the affection and secure the confidence 
of her child. She must not give way to ill humor or 
tedium, not for one moment; for it is difficult to say 
how the child may be affected by the most trifling cir- 
cumstance. It cannot examine the motives, nor can 
it anticipate the consequences, of an action : with little 
more than a general impression of the past it is entirely 
unconscious of the future; and thus the present bears 
upon the infant mind with the full weight of pain, or 
soothes it with the undiminished charm of pleasing 



Affectio^nt and Cokfiden^ce 7'S' 

emotions. If the mother consider this well, she may 
spare her child the feeling of much pain which, though 
not remembered as occasioned by special occurences, 
may yet leave a cloud as it were upon the mind, and 
gradually weaken that feeling which it is her interest 
as well as her duty to keep awake. 

But it is not enough for her to encourage and 
strengthen, — she must also elevate that same feeling. 

She must not rest satisfied with the success which 
the benevolence of her own intentions, and perhaps the 
disposition and temper of her child, may have facili- 
tated : she must recollect that education is not a uni- 
form and mechanical process, but a work of gradual 
and progressive improvement. Her present success 
must not betray her into security or indolence ; and 
the difficulties which she may chance to meet with 
must not dampen her zeal, or stop her endeavors. She 
must bear in mind the ultimate ends of education ; she 
must always be ready to take her share in the work 
which as a mother she stands pledged to forward — the 
elevation of the moral nature of man. 



LETTER XV 

December 24, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

Of all the affections of our nature, the most deserv- 
ing of encouragement, the most kindred to the stand- 
ard of true humanity, are no doubt those which are 
not confined to perishable objects; which do not solely 
act upon the imagination, but which are apt to expand 
the mind and inspire the heart with a noble zeal for 
all that is truly excellent. 

This consideration is of incalculable importance for 
the interest of moral education. It should form the 
very basis of all that a plan of education may propose 
or a system comprehend. 

If it is necessary to store the mind with knowledge, 
to enlighten the intellect, and to explain correct prin- 
ciples of morality ; if it is desirable to form the taste ; 
it is still more so, it is indeed indispensable, to direct, 
to purify, to elevate the affections of the heart: and 
we cannot commence at too early a period to proceed 
upon this principle. 

I have been led into these remarks by the idea ex- 

(74) 



Moral Educatiox 75 

pressed in the concluding part of my last letter, — that 
the affection and confidence which the infant bears to 
the mother should be elevated as well as encouraged 
and strengthened. It will not perhaps be superfluous 
to say a few words more in explanation of that proposi- 
tion. 

If the affections of the child were to remain for ever 
concentrated in the focus of his love of the mother ; if 
his confidence were for ever confined to her; however 
well she may have deserved the tribute of never-fail- 
ing gratitude, it is obvious that the child must earlier 
or later in his career experience the most severe pain 
and disappointment, for which with that exclusive 
direction of his moral nature he could then find no 
remedy. The time must come when the tie, however 
sacred, which unites him visibly with his mother must 
be broken : and whether it may be so ordained that it 
be rudely snapped or gently and gradually loosened, 
still the ultimate effect would be the same, equally 
painful and afflicting. 

Xot even the most sincere advocate for filial affec- 
tion, than which few feelings can be purer or deeper, 
— not even he who is most intimately penetrated by 
that sentiment, would wish to contend for the exclu- 
sive and constant ascendancy of that principle over 
the mind. If we do not mean to lose sight entirely of 
the higher destination and of the most exalted duties 



76 Letters ox Early Education, XY 

of mail, we cannot conceal from ourselves that man is 
not created " so noble in reason, so infinite in facul- 
ties " to give up liis wliole existence to liis aifection 
for any one individnal, while the most comprehensive 
view of his duties, both to his Maker and to his fellow- 
men, is clearly laid before him by a thousand witnesses, 
whose voices he cannot but hear. 

It is clear, therefore, that the afiection of the child 
to the mother is only to be appreciated in proportion 
as it serves to impress the infant mind with those emo- 
tions, and afterwards to render familiar to it those 
considerations, which belong to the ultimate ends, as 
far as we may understand them, of the Creator in the 
formation of man. 

If a mother is conscious of this, she will not find it 
difficult to take the right view of the affection which 
Providence has implanted in her child. She will con- 
sider it as the germ on which every better feeling must 
be engrafted. She will be led to consider herself as 
the instrument which Providence has chosen to purify 
that affection, to transfer its most intense agency to a 
still worthier object. She will then begin to under- 
stand why the most unlimited confidence springs so 
early and voluntarily from the very nature of the 
child. She will begin to understand that the infant 
is taught so early to confide in order that one day this 
confidence may be centred and elevated to the confi- 



Through Affectio^n^ to Religion 77 

(lence of a faith that will stand unshaken by danger 
and unsullied by corruption. 

• Let me here allude, my dear friend, to an occasional 
circumstance which would have invited me to these re- 
flections, even if I had not been engaged in conversing 
with you on the same theme. The date of this letter 
will, perhaps, remind you of a custom of my country 
which you have observed while living amongst us. 
The days on which the Xativity of our Lord is com- 
memorated in our churches have been adopted, since 
time immemorial, as a season at which the children in 
every family receive from their parents and from each 
other little tokens of affection. Need I recall to your 
recollection those scenes of innocent and heartfelt joy 
with which you were so much pleased when you wit- 
nessed them among our children ? They will convey to 
the mind of every observer a striking proof how little 
is requisite to give the most intense satisfaction and to 
afford infinite gratification, where there is a real stock 
of aifection, and where that simplicity of heart is still 
left which it should be the care of education to pre- 
serve as long as possible. You have seen'that those 
days are amongst us a real festival of aifection, in its 
fullest and most pleasing sense : and you will certainly 
not have found that the children Avhose hearts were 
just then under the influence of affection were less ac- 
cessible to the call of sincere and heartfelt devotion. 



78 Letters on Early Education, XV 

I have mentioned this circumstance, because it would 
afford a copious theme for reflection on the subject 
that I have been treating of. 

It is upon facts like this, which experience will at 
some time or other suggest to every parent, that I 
would ground the practical proof for the proposition 
that the affections, and especially the early affection 
of children to their parents, might be intimately con- 
nected with and essentially conducive to their being 
imbued with those impressions, the object of which 
is more important than every human consideration, 
and more sacred than every human tie. 



1 



LETTER XVI 

December 31, 1818. 
My dear Greaves, 

If the mother has once accustomed herself to take 
the view to which I alluded in my last, of the affection 
and the confidence of her infant, all her duties will 
appear to her in a laew light. 

She will then look upon education, not as a task 
which to her is invariably connected with much labor 
and difficulty, but as a work of which the facility and 
in a great measure the success is dependent on herself. 
She will look upon her own efforts in behalf of her 
child not as a matter of indifference or of convenience, 
but as a most sacred and most weighty obligation. She 
will be convinced that education does not consist in a 
series of admonitions and corrections, of rewards and 
punishments, of injunctions and directions, strung to- 
gether without unity of purpose or dignity of execu- 
tion; but that it ought to present an unbroken chain 
of measures, originating in the same principle, — in a 
knowledge of the constant laws of our nature; prac- 
tised in the same spirit, — a spirit of benevolence and 
firmness ; and leading to the same end, — the elevation 
of man to the true dignity of a spiritual being. 

(79) 



80 Letters ox Eaely Education, XVI 

But will the mother be able to spiritualize the un- 
folding faculties, the rising emotions of lier infant ? 
Will she be able to overcome those obstacles which the 
preponderance of the animal nature will throw in her 
way ? 

Not unless she has first lent her own heart to the in- 
fluence of a higher principle; not unless the germs of 
a spiritual love and faith which she is to develop in 
her child have first gained ground in the better affec- 
tions of her own being. 

Here, then, it will be necessary for the mother to 
pause and examine herself, how far she may expect to 
succeed in inculcating that to which in her own prac- 
tice she may have been a stranger more than she would 
wish to confess to herself. But let her be sincere, for 
once; and if the result of her examination be less 
favorable to her own expectations and less flattering to 
her self-love, let her resolution be the more sincere and 
vigorous to discard for the future all those minor pre- 
dilections, to check all those wishes which might alien- 
ate her from her new task ; and to give her whole heart 
to that which will promote her own final happiness and 
that of her child. 

HoAvever difficult it may appear at first to resign, to 
dismiss the thought of some hopes, and to defer the 
accomplishment of others, still that struggle is for the 
very best cause, and if serious cannot be unsuccessful : 



Criteeion of the Mother's Ixflue]s^ce 81 

for there is not an act of resignation, there is not a 
single fact in the moral world, however distinguished, 
to which maternal love conld not furnish a parallel. 

If the mother is but conscious of the sincerity of 
her own intentions, if she has raised the tone of her 
own mind and elevated the affections of her being 
above the sphere of subordinate and frivolous pursuits, 
she will soon be enabled to ascertain the efficacy of her 
influence on the child. 

Her best and almost infalliljle criterion will be 
whether she really succeeds in accustoming her child 
to the practice of self-denial. 

Of all the moral habits which may be formed by a 
judicious education, that of self-denial is the most 
difficult to acquire and the most beneficial when 
adopted. 

I call it a habit; for though it rests upon a principle, 
yet it is only by engendering a habit that that princi- 
ple gives evidence of its vitality. The practice of all 
other virtues, and more especially many of the actions 
which are admired and held out as examples, may be 
the result of a well-understood moral rule which had 
long been theoretically known before it was applied in 
a practical case ; or again they may have flown from a 
momentary enthusiasm, which acts with irresistible 
power on a mind alive to noble sentiments. But a 
practice of self-denial, conscientiously and cheerfully 



82 Earlt Letters on Education, XVI 

pursued, can be the fruit only of a long and constant 
habit. 

The greatest difficulty which the mother will find in 
her early attempts to form that habit in her infant 
does not rest with the importunity of the infant, but 
with her own weakness. 

If she is not herself able to resign her own comfort 
and her own fond desires to her maternal love, she 
must not think of obtaining such a result in the infant 
for her own sake. It is impossible to inspire others 
with a moral feeling if she is not herself pervaded with 
it. To endear any virtue to another she must herself 
look upon her own duty with pleasure. If she has 
known Virtue only as the awe-inspiring Goddess, — 

"• With gate and garb austere, 
And threatening brow severe".— 

she will never obtain that mastery over the heart which 
is not yielded up to authority but bestowed as the free 
gift of affection. 

But if the mother has in the discipline of early years 
or in the experience of life herself gone through a school 
of self-denial ; if she has nourished in her own heart 
the principle of active benevolence ; if she knows resig- 
nation, not by name only but from practice ; then her 
eloquence, her look of maternal love, her example, 
will be persuasive, and the infant will in a future day 
bless her memory and honor it by virtues. 



LETTER XVII 

January 7, 1819. 
My dear Grp]aves, 

I am anxious to elucidate some statements of a pre- 
ceding letter, concerning the early practice of self- 
denial. iVllow me for this purpose to resume the 
subject of my last; and if I shall appear to have dwelt 
too long on a favorite theme or to have recurred to it 
too often, may I hope that you will ascribe this cir- 
cumstance at least not xoleUi to the loquaciousness of 
old age, but also to my conviction of the vital import- 
ance of the subject. 

The more I have seen of the mental and moral 
misery under which thousands of our fellow-creatures 
are suffering; the more frequenty I have observed the 
wealth without content, the splendor without happiness, 
among the higher classes ; the closer I have investigated 
into the first springs of those mighty convulsions which 
have shaken the world and made even our peaceful 
valleys ring with the shouts of war and with the wail- 
ing of despair ; the more have I been confirmed in the 
view that the immediate causes of all this and of much 
misery that yet remains unmentioned have arisen from 

(83) 



84 Letters on Early Education^, XVII 

an undue superiority which the desires of the lower 
nature of" man have assumed over the energies of the 
mind and the better affections of the heart. 

And I cannot see any remedy placed within the reach 
of human power to check the further progress of this 
misery and the ulterior demoralization of our race, hut 
the early influence of mothers, to break by firmness the 
increasing power of animal selfishness, and to overconic 
it by affection. 

This is the end to which I would wish the practice 
of self-denial to contribute. For this reason I insist 
on the circumspection to be employed by mothers in 
controlling the cravings of infants. 

For this reason I would again and again request the 
mother to be watchful in her care, to do all in her 
power and to do it with cheerfulness, that none of its 
real wants may rest unattended to. For it is not only 
her duty to do so in order to provide for the physical 
well-being of the child ; but a neglect of this duty is 
to be still more anxiously avoided because it might 
cast a shadow on her own affection, and provoke, if 
not doubts, at least a feeling of uneasiness which might 
afterwards lead to them. 

But for this same reason I would entreat a mother 
to be constantly on her guard against her own weak- 
ness ; never to indulge the appetite of the child with 
what may be stimulating to further desire or what is 



Educatiox IX Self-Dexial 85 

cit best superfluous; and never to encourage importun- 
ity.* 

AYliat I call weakness she may perhaps call affection. 

But let her be persuaded that the character of true 
affection is far different. The affection for which she 
would ])lead is merely animal : it is a feeling for which 
she cannot account and which she cannot resist. It 
may become to her also the basis of a more elevated 
feeling of spiritualized maternal love. But to experi- 
ence the latter she must have opened her own heart to 
the influence of spiritual views and ^^rinciples. She 
must herself know how to bear and forbear, to resign and 
be humble. Slie must know a higher object of her 
wishes, a purer source of enjoyment than present grati- 
fication. She must weigh the experience of the past 
and ponder the duties of the future. Her own interest 
and her own desires must not interfere with more 



'^" An infallible Avay of rendering a child unhappy, 
is to indulge it in all its demands. Its desires multi- 
ply by gratification, without ever resting satisfied : it 
is lucky for the indulging parents, if it demand not 
the moon for a plaything. You cannot give every- 
thing ; and your refusal is more distressing than if you 
had stopped short at first. A child in pain is entitled 
to great indulgence ; but beware of yielding to fancy ; 
the more the child is indulged, the more headstrong it 
grows, and the more impatient of a disappointment." 
— Lord Kaines (Loose Hints on Educaflon), i. 54. 



86 Letters on Early Education, XVII 

momentous obligations, or weaken her attachment and 
her zeal for the welfare of others. Her affections 
must not be centred in self ; her wishes and her hopes 
must not be limited to the things of this world. 

What is born of the fle>ih must perish. If such be her 
affection to her child, it will die away before she is 
able to do anything for its real interest. But if her 
affection is of a higher origin ; if its efforts bear the 
stamp of a calm, a mild, and a conscientious spirit, 
it will enable her to conquer her own weakness, and 
to elevate by a judicious control the rising emotions of 
her infant. 

To those who have not had an opportunity of ob- 
serving it frequently, it is impossible to form an idea 
of the rapidity and eagerness with which the animal 
instinct grows, if left to itself without the salutary 
check of maternal influence. But the means so frequently 
emploj/ed cren hji mothers to re>^train its growth hy the fear 
of j)uni4nnent can tend only to make the evil worse. The 
mere act of forbidding is a strong excitement to desire. 
Fear can never act as a moral restraint ; it can act only 
as a stimulus to the physical appetite ; it exasperates 
and alienates the mind. 

This then is gained by severity.* Its consequences 

-'^ " I absolutely prohibit severity ; which will render 
the child timid, and introduce a habit of dissimmula- 



Affection ai^d Firmj^ess 87 

are no doubt as mischievous as those of indulgence. 
Against an excess of both I can only repeat the recom- 
mendation of affection and firmness. 

From these two guiding principles the mother will 
derive the satisfaction to see that when her infant 
from an inability to understand her motives cannot yet 
respect her as a wise mother, it will for the kindness of 
her manner obey her as a loving mother. 

tion, — the worst of habits. If such severity be exer- 
cised, so as to aleinate the child's affections, there 
is an end to education; the parent, or keeper, is 
transformed into a cruel tyrant over a trembling slave. 
Beware, on the other hand, of betraying any uneasiness 
in refusing what a child calls for unreasonably : per- 
ceiving your uneasiness, it will renew its attempt, hop- 
ing to find you in better humor. Even infants, some 
at least, are capable of this artifice; therefore, if an 
infant explains by signs, what it ought to have, let it 
be gratified instantly, with a cheerful countenance. If 
it desire what it ought not to have, let the refusal be 
sedate, but firm. Regard not its crying: it will soon 
give over, if not listened to. The task is easier with a 
child, who understands what is said to it: say only 
with a firm tone, that it cannot have what it desires; 
but without showing any heat on the one hand, or 
concern on the other. The child, believing that the 
thing is impossible, will cease to fret." — Loose Hints 
on Education, i. 48. 



LETTER XVIII 

Januaky 14, 1819. 
My dear Great es, 

I have already alluded to the period when the child 
is separated from the immediate influence of maternal 
love. 

It is natural for a mother to look forward to that 
period with much anxiety. The time will come, and 
come when it may it will always be too soon for her, ' 
when she must give up the satisfaction of herself 
directing every step, of watching and assisting the 
progress of her child. A thousand apprehensions will 
he excited in her breast; a thousand dangers real or 
imaginary will appear to beset every step ; and a thous- 
and temptations will seem to lurk under the joys and 
the tasks of life into which her child is now to enter. 
These apprehensions will be felt at an earlier time for 
a son, because the present system of society dismisses 
him earlier from the immediate influence of the mother. 
And though he may still be under the care of an affec- 
tionate parent or of judicious and benevolent teachers, 
yet will a mother feel a void on the occasion when he 
is for the first time separated from her side. 

(88) 



Separatio:n" from the Mother 89 

Then she will be disposed to retrace all the different 
stages of his gradual development: the little history of 
his present habits, the moments in which she best suc- 
ceeded in giving salutary impressions and in which his 
affection promised fair to overcome the less amiable 
part of his temper : she will be disposed to dwell more 
particularly on those facts which may justify a hope 
that her labor has not been in vain ; that one day she 
shall see the fruits of her early care. 

But while she will be disposed thus to dwell on the 
exhilarating prospect before her, her imagination and 
indeed her affection will be busy in sketching out the 
various scenes of his future life. The next few years 
may perhaps be an object altogether of less solicitude; 
but how should not a mother be strongly affected by 
the idea that soon, very soon, he whose tender infancy 
she had been protecting will have to meet life unpre- 
pared, unless it be by the advice of his friends, by the 
vital energy of his principles, and by a small but per- 
haps dearly-bought stock of experience. Kecollections 
of the past and anticipations of the future will crowd 
before her eyes, and as she may dismiss or resume them 
her bosom will be alive to the emotions of alternate 
hope and fear. 

" The golden morning of his days, 
A mother's watchful care surveys ; 
But shafts fly quickly from the string, 
And years are fast upon the wing : 



90 Letters ox Early Education, XVIIT 

He tears him from a mother's side, 

Eager on stormy life to roam. 
With pilgrim steps he wanders wide. 

Returns a stranger to his home." 

But a thinking mother will not wait till these con- 
siderations are suggested by the necessity of a separa- 
tion which can no longer be postponed. She will at 
an early period have occasion to reflect on the nature 
and the duration of her connection with the child. 
And far from giving rise to unpleasant or even painful 
feelings, this train of thought may enable her to take 
not only a just, but also a gratifying view of the sub- 
ject. 

In a previous letter I have spoken of the first con- 
nection of the mother and the child after its birth as 
being merely a phenomenon of animal nature. By 
this I understand that in both the power which unites 
them is in its origin instinctive. In the infant it is 
constantly excited by a feeling of want ; in the mother 
it is strongly supported by a consciousness of duty. 

If in the mother also I ascribe to it a sort of instinct- 
ive agency, observation will I think furnish many facts 
which will clearly prove it. Among them it is not the 
least remarkable that in a person who has from circum- 
stances been called upon to act as a mother to the in- 
fant of a stranger, the same affection is very frequently 
engendered as if it had been her own child. And this 
has been observed not only in cases when the nurse had 



Mutual Affection 91 

been much grieved for the separation from her own 
child, but when at first she had even evinced decided 
aversion to the child now confided to her care. So 
that the maternal instinct would seem to be transfera- 
ble, as it were, to another object; an observation which 
argues at once for its original energy, and for its pri- 
ority to the circumstances under which a sense of duty 
alone might have led to the same efforts. 

But if in the infant this instinct is manifested before 
a distinct sensation of its wants was possible, and if it 
has acted in the mother before she has reflected on her 
duties, there is yet as we have seen one feature, and 
that of a pleasing kind, by which the character of this 
instinct is distinguished. This feature is no other than 
affection. 

This affection, again, we may call instinctive, in its 
first origin. In the infant it is at first quite exclusive ; 
its only object is the mother. 

Still more : not only is the attachment of the infant 
limited to the mother, but it seems to be accessible to no 
kind of sensation unless in some manner connected with 
her. Unpleasant sensations immediately make it look 
for relief or protection to her; and however earnestly 
strangers may exert themselves to amuse the infant, it 
is well known how difficult it is for them to fix its at- 
tention without distressing instead of pleasing. 

But this state of things cannot continue very long. 



92 Letters ox Early Education, XVIII 

The more the child grows physically independent of 
the mother, the more it gets accustomed to use its 
senses and also its faculties, the less chance will there 
be for its affection to continue still exclusively confined 
to the mother. 

And here it A\dll become necessary for the mother to 
be cautious as well against the temptation of monopo- 
lizing as against the danger of alienating its affection. 



LETTER XIX 

Januaky 19, 1819. 
My dear Greaves, 

I have in my last letter supposed an infant to be ar- 
rived at the period when the immediate connection 
with the mother begins gradually to loosen itself. 

The different degrees of the relaxation of this tie must 
in a great measure depend on the natural disposition 
and even on the physical constitution of the child. A 
sickly child, or one whose first movements are marked 
by timidity, will for a long time know of affection or 
confidence in no other person than the mother. 

But children of a healthy constitution will soon give 
signs of an inclination to make themselves independent 
of the assistance of others. They will be found to 
observe a great many objects to which their attention 
has not in. any way been called; next to observation, 
or rather together with it, will come desire; and in- 
stead of expressing this by their usual signs and wait- 
ing patiently till it is complied with, they will make 
attempts to reach the object and appropriate it to 
themselves. These exertions, which at first are very 
imperfect and sometimes ludicrous to the beholders, 

(93) 



94 Letters on Early Education, XIX 

will be repeated every time with greater energy till at 
length they succeed, and if it is impossible to succeed, 
the desire instead of subsiding will be only increased. 

I have already alluded to these cravings of the in- 
fant, and spoken of the necessity to counteract them 
by firmness and benevolence. 

But I did not then mean to describe them as some- 
thing which in itself was bad or blamable. I described 
them as the necessary effects of the animal instinct, of 
which even an excess, though to be prevented, yet 
conld not at that tender age be punishable; and from 
this reason, while I recommended an affectionate mode 
of connteracting them, or rather of substituting 
something better in their place, I decided against every 
measure that might proceed from severity. 

If on such a plan a mother has succeeded in repress- 
ing the inordinate cravings, she will not then have 
the least occasion to look with other feelings than those 
of gratification on those little attempts at independ- 
ence. They are the most unquestionable signs of the 
progress which a child has been making. And if they 
are well directed, she may look upon them as the pre- 
cursors of a long and laudable activity. 

All the faculties will appear to take part in the de- 
velopment of the child. They will all be called into 
play by circumstances which surround the child every 
day and almost every hour. 



The First Step toward the Mother 95 

Who knows not that it is an event in the life of every 
one of ns to be able for the first time to walk without 
assistance ? It is an event which is commemorated in 
the family and related to all the friends, who severally 
express their joy at the long-wished-for consummation. 

I would certainly not wish to spoil their joy at the 
event : I am far from underrating its importance : but 
I would at the same time wish to bestow in addition 
to their congratulations a few moments upon a more 
serious consideration. 

The time when a child first begins to walk without 
assistance is indeed an epoch in the history of his edu- 
cation. It is evident that it is the most marked step 
of physical independence of others. But at the same 
time it occasions a new mode of manifestation of the 
affection. 

The child, who is now able to move as he chooses, is 
also able to come to the mother. Instead of seeking 
for her with the eye only, or stretching out the little 
arms after her, the child is now enabled to seek the 
presence of the mother; and the more this has the ap- 
pearance of a free and voluntary effort, the more 
endearing will it be to the mother as a new sign of 
affection, which continues and may long continue a 
bond between them, when the last trace has disap- 
peared of the helplessness which had first claimed it. 



LETTEE XX 

Jaxuaky 25, 1819. 
My deae Greaves, 

In describing the manner in which the immediate 
influence of the mother is gradually weakened, and the 
connection between her and the child loosened, we 
must not stop at the enumeration of those facts which 
I have detailed in my last. 

It is not the mere physical growth, the acquirement 
of the full use of all the faculties of the body, which 
constitutes the independence of the child. The off- 
spring of the animal creation have indeed reached the 
highest point of their development when they are 
strong enough to subsist and provide for themselves. 
But it is far otherwise with the offspring of man. 

In the progress of time the child not only is daily 
exercising its physical faculties, but begins also to 
feel intellectually and morally independent. 

From observation and memory there is only one step 
to reflection. Though imperfect, yet this operation is 
frequently found among the early exercises of the in- 
fant mind. The powerful stimulus of inquisitiveness 
prompts to exertions which if successful or encouraged 

by others will lead to a habit of thought. 

(96) 



The Questions of Children 97 

If we inquire into the cause of the habit of thought- 
lessness which is so frequently complained of, we shall 
find that there has been a want of judicious encourage- 
ment of the first attempts at thought. 

Children are troublesome; their questions are of 
little consequence ; they are constantly asking about 
what they do not understand; they must not have 
their will; they must learn to be silent. 

This reasoning is frequently adopted, and, in conse- 
quence, means are found to deter children from the 
provoking practice of their inquisitiveness. 

I am certainly of the opinion that they should not 
be indulged in a habit of asking idle questions. Many 
of their questions certainly betray nothing more than 
a childish curiosity. But it would be astonishing if it 
were otherwise; and the more judicious should be the 
answers which they receive. 

You are acquainted with my opinion that as soon as 
the infant has reached a certain age, every object that 
surrounds him might be made instrumental to the ex- 
citement of thought. You are aware of the principles 
which I have laid down, and the exercises which I have 
pointed out to mothers. "^ You have frequently expressed 

^" The best practical explanation, in English, of 

these details will be found in the several numbers of 

the publication, ' Hints to Parents. In the spirit of 
Pestalozzi's method.' " 



98 Letters ox Early Educatioj^, XX 

your astonishment at the success with which mothers 
who followed my plan, or who had formed a similar one 
of their own, were constantly employed in awakening in 
very young children the dormant faculties of thought. 
The keenness with which they followed what was laid 
before them, the regularity with which they went 
through their little exercises, has given you the con- 
viction that upon a similar plan it would be easy not 
only for a mother to educate a few, but for a teacher 
also to manage a large number of very young children. 
But I have not now to do with the means which may 
■be best appropriated to the purpose of developing 
thought. I merely want to point to the fact that 
thought will spring up in the infant mind; and that 
though neglected or even misdirected, yet a restless 
intellectual activity must sooner or later enable the 
child in more than one respect to grow intellectually 
independent of others. 

But the most important step is that which concerns 
the aifections of the heart. 

The infant very soon commences to show by signs and 
by its whole conduct that it is pleased with some per- 
sons, and that it entertains a dislike, or rather that it 
is in fear of others. 

In this respect habit and circumstances may do much ; 
but I think it will be generally observed that an infant 
will be easily accustomed to the sight and the atten- 



Growth of Opiis^ioi^ 99 

tions of those whom it sees frequently and in friendly 
relation to the mother. 

Impressions of this kind are not lost upon children. 
The friends of the mother soon become those of the in- 
fant. An atmosphere of kindness is the most kindred 
to its own nature. It is unconsciously accustomed to 
that atmosphere, and from the undisturbed smile and 
the clear and cheerful glance of the eye it is evident 
that it enjoys it. 

The infant, then, learns to love those whom the 
mother considers with affection. It learns to confide 
in those in whom the mother shows confidence. 

Thus it will go on for some time. But the more the 
child observes, the more distinct are the impressions 
produced by the conduct of others. 

It will therefore become possible even for a stranger, 
and one who is a stranger also to the mother, by a 
certain mode of conduct to gain the affection and the 
confidence of a child. To obtain them, the first requi- 
site is constancy in the general conduct. It would 
appear scarcely credible, but it is strictly true, that 
children are not blind to, and that some children re- 
seAt, the slightest deviation, for instance, from truth. 
In like manner, bad temper once indulged may go a 
great way to aleinate the affection of the child, which 
can never be gained a second time by flatteries. This 
fact is certainly astonishing ; and it may also be quoted 



100 Letters ois" Early Educatiois^, XX 

as evidence for the statement that there is in the infant 
a pure sense of the true and tlie right, which struggles 
against the constant temptation arising from the weak- 
ness of human nature to falsehood and depravity. 

The child, then, begins to judge for himself not of 
things only but also of men; he acquires an idea of 
character; he grows more and more morally independent. 



LETTER XXI 

February 4, 1819. 
My dear Greaves, 

If education is understood to be the work not of a 
certain course of exercises resumed at stated times but 
of a continual and benevolent superintendence; if the 
importance of development is acknowledged not only 
in favor of the memory and the intellect and a few 
abilities which lead to indispensable attainments, but 
in favor of all the faculties, whatever may be their 
names, or nature, or energy, which Providence has 
implanted; its province, thus enlarged, will yet be with 
less difficulty surveyed from one point of view, and 
will have more of a systematic and truly philosophical 
character, than an incoherent mass of exercises, ar- 
ranged without unity of principle, and gone through 
without interest, — which frequently, not very appropri- 
ately, receives the name of education. 

We must bear in mind that the ultimate end of edu- 
cation is not perfection in the accomplishments of 
the school, but fitness for life; not the acquirement of 
habits of blind obedience and of prescribed diligence, 

(101) 



102 Letters ox Early Education, XXI 

but a preparation for independent action. We must 
bear in mind that whatever class of society a pupil 
may belong to, whatever calling he may be intended 
for, there are certain faculties in human nature com- 
mon to all, which constitute the stock of the funda- 
mental energies of man. We have no right to withhold 
from any one the opportunities of developing all his 
faculties. It may be judicious to treat some of them 
with marked attention, and to give up the idea of 
bringing others to high perfection. The diversity of 
talent and inclination, of plans and pursuits, is a suffi- 
cient proof for the necessity of such a distinction. But 
I repeat that we have no right to shut out the child 
from the development of those faculties also which we 
may not for the present conceive to be very essential 
for his future calling or station in life. 

Who is not acquainted with the vicissitudes of human 
fortune which have frequently rendered an attainment 
valuable that was little esteemed before, or led to re- 
gret the want of application to an exercise that had 
been treated with contempt ? Who has not at some 
time or other experienced the delight of being able to 
benefit others by his advice or assistance, under cir- 
cumstances when but for his interference they must 
have been deprived of that benefit ? And who, even 
if in practice he is a stranger to it, would not at least 
in theory acknowledge that the greatest satisfaction 



Development of all the Faculties 108 

man can obtain is a consciousness that lie is pre-emin- 
ently qualified to render himself useful ? 

But even if all this were not deserving of attention ; if 
the suiBficiency of ordinary acquirements for the great 
majority were vindicated on grounds perhaps of partial 
experience and of inference from well-known facts, I 
would still maintain that our systems of education 
have for the most part been laboring under this incon- 
venience, that they did not assign the due proportion 
to the different exercises proposed by them. 

The only correct idea of this subject is to be derived 
from the examination of human nature with all its facul- 
ties. AYe do not find in the vegetable or the animal 
kingdom any species of objects gifted with certain 
qualities which are not in some stage of its existence 
called into play, and which do not contribute to the 
full development of the character of the species in the 
individual. Even in the mineral kingdom the wonders 
of Providence are incessantly manifested in the num- 
berless combinations of crystallization; and thus even 
in the lowest department of created things, as far as 
we are acquainted with them, a constant law, the means 
employed by Supreme Intelligence, decides upon the 
formation, the shape, and the individual character of a 
mineral, according to its inherent properties. Although 
the circumstances under which a mineral may have 
been formed or a plant may have grown or an animal 



104 Letters on Early Education, XXI 

may have been brought up may influence and modify, 
yet they can never destroy that result which the com- 
bined agency of its natural energies or qualities will 
produce. 

Thus education, instead of merely considering what 
is to be imparted to children, ought to consider first 
what they may be said already to possess, if not as a 
developed, at least as an involved faculty capable of 
development. Or if, instead of speaking thus in the 
abstract, we will but recollect that it is to the great 
Author of life that man owes the possession and is re- 
sponsible for the use of his innate faculties, education 
should not only decide what is to be made of a child, 
but rather inquire, what is a child qualified for ? what 
is his destiny, as a created and responsible being ? what 
are his faculties as a rational and moral being ? what 
are the means pointed out for their perfection and the 
end held out as the highest object of their efforts by 
the Almighty Father of all, both in the creation and 
in the page of revelation ? 

To these questions the answer must be simple and 
comprehensive. It must combine all mankind, — it 
must be applicable to all, without distinction of zones 
or nations in which they may be born. It must ac- 
knowledge in the first place the rights of man, in the 
fullest sense of the word. It must proceed to show 
that these rights, far from being confined to those ex- 



Development of all the Faculties 105 

terior advantages which have from time to time been 
secured by a successful struggle of the people, embrace 
a much higher privilege, the nature of which is not yet 
generally understood or appreciated. They embrace 
the rightful claims of all classes to a general diffusion 
of useful knowledge, a careful development of the in- 
tellect, and judicious attention to all the faculties of 
man, physical, intellectual, and moral. 

It is in vain to talk of liberty, when man is un- 
nerved, or his mind not stored with knowledge, or his 
judgment neglected; and above all, when he is left un- 
conscious of his rights and his duties as a moral being. -'^ 

*" We entertain a firm conviction, that the princi- 
ples of liberty, as in government and trade, so also in 
education, are all-important to the happiness of man- 
kind. To the triumph of those principles we look 
forward, not, we trust, with a fanatical confidence, 
but assuredly with a cheerful and steadfast hope. 
Their nature may be misunderstood; their progress 
may be retarded. They may be maligned, derided, 
nay, at times exploded, and apparently forgotten. 
But we do, in our souls, believe that they are strong 
with the strength, and quick with the vitality of truth; 
that when they fall, it is to rebound ; that when they 
recede, it is to spring forward with greater elasticity ; 
that when they seem to perish, there are the seeds of 
renovation in their very decay." — Edinhurgh Bcrieir, 
March, 1826. 



LETTER XXII 

February 10, 1819. 
My dear Greaves, 

If according to correct principles of education all 
the faculties of man are to be developed and all his 
slumbering energies called into play, the early atten- 
tion of mothers must be directed to a subject which is 
generally considered to require neither much thought 
nor experience, and therefore is generally neglected. 
I mean the physical education of children. 

Who has not a few general sentences at hand which 
he will be ready to quote, but perhaps not to practise, 
on the management of children ? I am aware that 
much has been done away with that used to exercise 
the very worst influence on children. I am aware that 
the general management of them has become much 
more rational, and that their tasks and amusements 
have been much improved by a judicious attention to 
their wants and their faculties. But much still re- 
mains to be done ; and we shall deserve little credit 
for a real wish to improve if we suffer ourselves to rest 
satisfied with the idea that all is not so bad as it might 
be or as it may have been. 

(106) 



Physical Education^ 107 

The revival of gymnastics is in my opinion the most 
important step that has been done in that direction. 
The great merit of the gymnastic art is not the facility 
with which certain exercises are performed or the quali- 
fication which they may give for certain exertions that 
require much energy and dexterity; though an attain- 
ment of that sort is by no means to be despised. 

But the greatest advantage resulting from a practice 
of those exercises is the natural progress which is ob- 
served in the arrangement of them, beginning with 
those which while they are easy in themselves yet lead 
as a preparatory practice to others which are more 
complicated and more difficult. There is not perhaps 
any art in which it may be so clearly shown that ener- 
gies which appear to be wanting are to be produced, 
as it were, or at least are to be developed by no other 
means than practice alone. 

This might afford a most useful hint to all those who 
are engaged in teaching any object of instruction, and 
who meet with difficulties in bringing their pupils to 
that proficiency which they had expected. Let them 
recommence on a new plan, in which the exercises shall 
be differently arranged and the subjects brought for- 
ward in a manner that will admit of the natural pro- 
gress from the easier to the more difficult. When 
talent is wanting altogether, I know that it cannot be 
imparted by any system of education. But I have 



108 Letters ox Early Education, XXII 

been taught by experience to consider the cases in 
which talents of any kind are absolutely wanting but 
very few. And in most cases, I have had the satisfac- 
tion to find that a faculty which had been quite given 
Over, instead of being developed had been rather ob- 
structed in its agency by a variety of exercises which 
tend to perplex or to deter from further exertion. 

And here I would attend to a prejudice which is 
common enough concerning the use of gymnastics : it 
is frequently said that they may be very good for those 
who are strong enough ; but that those who are s'uif er- 
ing from weakness of constitution would be altogether 
unequal to and even endangered by a practice of gym- 
nastics. 

Xow I will venture to say that this rests merely upon 
a misunderstanding of the first principles of gymnas- 
tics : . the exercises not only vary in proportion to the 
strength of individuals ; but exercises may be and have 
been devised for those also who were decidedly suffer- 
ing. And I have consulted the authority of the first 
physicians, who declare that in cases which had come 
under their personal observation individuals aft'ected 
with pulmonary complaints, if these had not already 
proceeded too far, had been materially relieved and 
benefited by a constant practice of the few and simple 
exercises which the system in such cases proposes. 

And for this very reason, that exercises m.iy be de- 



Advaj^taCxE of Gymnastics 109 

vised for every age and for every degree of bodily 
strength, however reduced, I consider it to be esssn- 
tial that mothers should make themselves acquainted 
with the principles of gymnastics, in order that among 
the elementary and preparatory exercises they may be 
able to select those which according to circumstances 
will be most likely to suit and benefit their children. 

I do not mean to say that mothers should strictly 
adhere to those exercises only which they may find 
pointed out in a work on gymnastics; they may of 
course vary them as they find desirable or advisable ; 
but I would recommend a mother much rather to con- 
sult one who has some experience in the management 
of gymnastics with children, before she decides upon 
altering the course proposed, or adopting other exer- 
cises of which she is unable to calculate the exact de- 
gree of strength which they may require or the benefit 
that her children may derive from them. 

If the physical advantage of gymnastics is great and 
uncontrovertible, I would contend that the moral ad- 
vantage resulting from them is as valuable. I would 
again appeal to your own observation. You have^een 
a number of schools in Germany and Switzerland of 
which gymnastics formed a leading feature; and I 
recollect that in our conversations on the subject you 
made the remark, which exactly agrees with my own 
experience, that gymnastics, well conducted, essentially 



110 Letters ox Early Education, XXII 

contributes not only to render children cheerful and 
healthy, which for moral education are two all-import- 
ant points, but also to promote among them a certain 
spirit of union and brotherly feeling which is most 
gratifying to the observer: habits of industry, open- 
ness and frankness of character, personal courage, and 
a manly conduct in suffering pain, are also among the 
natural^ and constant consequences of an early and a 
continued practice of exercises on the gymnastic sys- 
tem. 



LETTEE XXIII 

February 18, 1827. 
My dear Greaves, 

Physical education ought by no means to be coji- 
fined to those exercises which now receive the denomi- 
natit)n of gymnastics. By means of them strength and 
dexterity will be acquired in the use of the limbs in 
general; but particular exercises ought to be devised 
for the practice of all the senses. 

This idea may at first appear a superfluous refinement, 
or an unnecessary encumbrance of free development. 
We have acquired the full use of our senses, to be 
sure, without any special instruction of that sort: but 
the question is not whether these exercises are indis- 
pensable, but whether under any circumstances they 
will not prove useful. 

How^ many are there of us whose eye would without 
any assistance judge correctly of a distance, or of the 
proportion of the size of different objects ? How many 
are there who distinguish and recognize the nice shades 
of colors, without comparing the one with the other; 
or whose ear will be alive to the slightest variation of 

(111) 



112 Letters o^ Early Education^, XXIII 

sound ? Those who are able to do this with some de- 
gree of perfection will be found to derive their facility 
either from a certain innate talent, or from constant 
and laborious practice. Xow it is evident that there is 
a certain superiority in these attainments which 
natural talent gives without any exertion, and which 
instruction could never impart though attended by the 
most diligent application. But if practice cannot do 
everything, at least it can do much ; and the earlier it 
is begun, the easier and the more perfect must be the 
success. 

A regular system of exercises of this description is 
yet a desideratum. But it cannot be difficult for a 
mother to introduce into the amusements of her chil- 
dren a number of these exercises, calculated to 
develop and perfect the eye and the ear. For it is 
desirable that everything of that kind should be treated 
as an amusement, rather than as anything else. The 
greatest liberty must prevail, and tlie whole must be 
done with a certain cheerfulness, without which all 
these exercises, as gymnastics themselves, would be- 
come dull, pedantic, and ridiculous. 

It will be well to connect these exercises very early 
with others tending to form the taste. It seems not 
to be sufficiently understood that good taste and good 
feelings are kindred to each other, and that they re- 
ciprocally confirm each other. Though the ancients 



Education of the Seis^ses 113 

have said that " to study those arts which are suited 
to a free-born mind soothes the character and takes 
away the roughness of exterior manners," yet little has 
been done to open a free access to those enjoyments 
or accomplishments to all, and especially to the major- 
ity of the people. If they must not be expected to be 
able to give much of their attention to subordinate or 
ornamental pursuits, while so much of it is engrossed 
in providing for Iheir first and necessary wants, still 
this does not furnish a conclusive reason why they 
should be shut out altogether from every pursuit above 
the toil of their ordinary vocations. 

Yet I know not a more gratifying scene than to see, 
as I have seen among the poor, a mother spreading 
around her a spirit of silent but serene enjoyment, 
diffusing among her children a spring of better feel- 
ings, and setting the example of removing everything 
that might offend the taste, not indeed of a fastidious 
observer but yet of one used to move in another sphere. 
It is difficult to describe by what means this can be 
effected. But I have seen it under circumstances 
which did not promise to render it even possible. 

Of one thing I am certain, that it is only through 
the true spirit of maternal love that it can be obtained. 
That feeling, of which I cannot too frequently repeat 
that it is capable of an elevation to the standard of the 
very best feelings of human nature, is intimately con- 



114 Letters ox Early Education, XXIII 

nected with a happy instinct that will lead to a path 
equally as remote from listlessness and indolence as it 
is from artificial refinement. Refinement and fastid- 
iousness may do much, if upheld by constant watch- 
fulness; a nature, however, a truth will be wanting; 
and even the casual observer will be struck with a re- 
straint incompatible with an atmosphere of sympathy. 

Xow that I am on the topic, I will not let the 
opportunity pass by without speaking of one of the 
most effective aids of moral education. You are aware 
that I mean music, and not only are you acquainted 
with my sentiments on that subject, but you have also 
observed the very satisfactory results which we have 
obtained in our schools. The exertions of my excellent 
friend Xageli, who has with equal taste and judgment 
reduced the highest principles of his art to the sim- 
plest elements, have enabled us to bring our children 
to a proficiency which on any other plan must be the 
work of much time and labor. 

But it is not this proficiency which I would describe 
as a desirable accomplishment of education. It is the 
marked and most beneficial influence of music on the 
feelings, which I have always observed to be the most 
efficient in preparing, or as it were attuning, the mind 
for the best impressions. The exquisite harmony of 
a superior performance, the studied elegance of the 
execution, may indeed give satisfaction to a connois- 



Importance of Music 115 

seiir ; but it is the simple and untaught grace of melody 
which speaks to the heart of every human being. Our 
own national melodies, which have since time imme- 
morial been resounding in our native valleys, are fraught 
with reminiscences of the brightest page of our history 
and of the most endearing scenes of domestic life. 

But the effect of music in education is not only to 
keep alive a national feeling: it goes much deeper; if 
cultivated in the right spirit it strikes at the root of 
every bad or narrow feeling, of every ungenerous or 
mean propensity, of every emotion unworthy of 
humanity. 

In saying so I might quote an authority which com- 
mands our attention on account of the elevated char- 
acter and genius of the man from whom it proceeds. 
It is well-known, that there was not a more eloquent 
and warm advocate of the moral virtues of music than 
the venerable Luther. But though his voice has made 
itself heard and is still held in the highest esteem 
among us, yet experience has spoken still louder and 
more unquestionably to the truth of the proposition 
which he was among the first to vindicate. Experience 
has long since proved that a system proceeding upon the 
principle of sympathy would be imperfect if it were to 
deny itself the assistance of that powerful means of 
the culture of the heart. Those schools or those fam- 
ilies in which "music ' has retained the cheerful and 



116 Early Letters ox Educatioi^, XXIII 

chaste character which it is so important that it should 
preserve have invariably displayed scenes of moral 
feeling and consequently of happiness which leave no 
doubt as to the intrinsic value of that art, which has 
sunk into neglect or degenerated into abuse only in 
the ages of barbarism or depravity. 

I need not remind you of the importance of music 
in engendering and assisting the highest feelings of 
which man is capable. It is almost universally 
acknowledged that Luther saw the truth when lie 
pointed to music, devoid of studied pomp and vain 
ornament, in its solemn and impressive simplicity, as 
one of the most efficient means of elevating and puri- 
fying genuine feelings of devotion. 

We have frequently in our conversations on this 
subject been at a loss how to account for the circum- 
stance that in your own country, though that fact is as 
generally acknowledged, yet music does not form a 
more prominent feature in general education. It would 
seem that the notion prevails that it would require 
more time and application than can conveniently be 
bestowed upon it, to make its influence extend also 
on the education of the people. 

Xow I would appeal with the same confidence as I 
would to yourself to any traveller, whether he has not 
been struck with the facility as well as the success with 
which it is cultivated among us. Indeed there is 



Luther's Views ox Music 117 

scarcely a village school throughout Switzerland, and 
perhaps there is none throughout Germany or Prussia, 
in which something is not done for an acquirement of 
at least the elements of music on the new and more 
appropriate plan. 

This is a fact which it cannot be difficult to examine, 
and which it will be impossible to dispute; and I will 
conclude this letter by expressing the hope which we 
have been entertaining together, that this fact will not 
be overloolxfd in a country uhich h(i>> never been bachcarcl 
in .sngf/esting or adopting improvement ivhen founded on 
facts, and confirmed by experience. 



LETTER XXIV 

February 27, 1819. 
My dear Greayes, 

In the branch of oducation of which I have been 
treating in the two last letters, I conceive that to the 
elements of music should be subjoined the elements of 
drawing. 

We all know from experience that among the first 
manifestations of the faculties of a child are a desire 
and an attempt of imitation. This accounts for the 
acquirement of language, and for the first imperfect 
utterance of sounds imitative of music which is com- 
mon to most children when they have heard a ttne 
with which they were pleased. The progress in both 
depends on the greater or smaller portion of attention 
which children give to the things that surround them, 
and on their quickness of perception. In the very 
same way as this applies to the ear and the organs of 
speech, it applies also to the eye and the employment 
of the hand. Children who evince some curiosity in 
the objects brought before their eyes very soon begin, 
to employ their ingenuity and skill in copying what 

(118) 



Education ii>" Drawin^g 119 

they have seen. Most children will manage to con- 
struct something in imitation of a bnilcling, of any 
materials they can lay hold of. 

This desire, which is natural to them, should not be 
neglected. It is like all the faculties capable of regu- 
lar development. It is therefore well done to furnish 
children with playthings which will facilitate these 
their first essays, and occasionally to assist them. Xo 
encouragement of that sort is lost upon them ; and en- 
couragement should never be withheld when it promotes 
innocent pleasure and when it may lead to useful occu- 
pation. To relieve them from the monotonousness of 
their daily and hourl}^ repeated trifles, and to introduce 
variety into their little amusements, acts as a stimulus 
to their ingenuity and sharpens their observation 
wdiiie it gains their interest. 

As soon as they are able to make the attempt there 
is nothing so well calculated for this object as some 
elementary practice of drawing. 

You have seen the course of pi'eparatory exercises by 
which some of my friends have so well succeeded in 
facilitating these pursuits for quite young children. It 
would be unreasonable to expect that they should begin 
by drawing any object before them as a whole. It is 
necessary to analyze for them the parts and elements 
of which it consists. Whenever this has been at- 
tempted the progress has been astonishing, and 



120 Letters o>^ Early Educatio:n^, XXIV 

equalled only by tlie delight with which the children 
followed this their favorite pursuit. My friends Ram- 
sauer and Boniface "-^ have undertaken the very useful 
work of arranging such a course in its natural progress 
from the easiest to the most complicated exercises; and 
the number of schools in which their method has been 
successfully practised confirms the experience which 
Ave have made at Yverdun of its merits. 

The general advantages resulting from an early jDrac- 
tice of drawing are evident to every one. Those who 
are familiar with the art are known to look upon almost 
every object with eyes different as it were from a com- 
mon observer. One who is in the habit of examining 
the structure of plants and conversant with a system of 
botany will discover a number of distinguishing char- 
acteristics of a flower, for instance, which remain 
wholly unnoticed by one unacquainted with that science. 

* Both these gentlemen have since published sev- 
eral works, the first in German, and the second in 
French, with illustrations. Their princi2)les, which 
were first applied in the Pestalozzian schools, are now 
very generally adopted in the best schools of Germany 
and France ; and their works, especially that of Ram- 
sauer, would well deserve a translation into English. 
The superiority of their method has been generally ac- 
knowledged by the Englishmen Avho have seen it prac- 
tised in the Pestalozzian institutions. 



Drawi:n^g develops Observation 121 

It is from the same reason that even in common life a 
person who is in the habit of drawing, especially from 
Xatnre, will easily perceive many circumstances which 
are commonly overlooked, and form a much more cor- 
rect impression even of such objects as he does not 
stop to examine minutely, than one who has never 
been taught to look upon what he sees with an inten- 
tion to reproduce a likeness of it. The attention to 
the exact shape of the whole and the proportion of the 
parts which is requisite for the taking of an adequate 
sketch is converted into a habit, and becomes in many 
cases productive of much instruction and amusement. 

In order to attain this habit, it is material and almost 
indispensable that children should not be confined to 
copying from another drawing, but permitted to sketch 
from Xature. The impression which the object itself 
gives is so much more striking than its appearance in 
an imitation that it gives a child much more pleasure 
to exercise his skill in attempting a likeness of what 
surrounds him and of what he is interested in, than to 
labor at a copy of what is but a copy itself, and has less 
of life or interest in its appearance. 

It is likewise much easier to give an idea of the im- 
portant subject of light and shade and of the first 
principles of perspective, as far as they influence the 
representation of every object, by placing it immedi- 
ately before the eye. The assistance which is given 



122 Letters ox Early Education, XXIV 

should by no means extend to a direction in the ex- 
ecution of every detail ; but something should be left 
to the ingenuity, something also to patience and 
perseverance: an advantage that has been found out 
after some fruitless attempts is not easily forgotten; 
it gives much satisfaction and encouragement to new 
efforts; and the joy at the ultimate success derives a 
zest from previous disappointment. 

^N'ext to the exercises of drawing come those of 
modelling, in whatever materials may be most conven- 
iently employed. This is frequently productive of 
even more amusement. Even where there is no dis- 
tinguished mechanical talent, the pleasure of being- 
able to do something at least is with many a sufficient 
excitement : and both drawing and modelling, if taught 
on principles which are founded in nature, will be of 
the greatest use when the pupils are to enter upon 
other branches of instruction. 

Of these I shall here only mention two — geometry 
and geography. The preparatory exercises by which 
we have introduced a course of geometry present an 
analysis of the various combinations under which the 
elements of form are brought together, and of which 
every figure or diagram consists. These elements are 
already familiar to the pupil who has been taught to 
consider an object with a view to decompose it into its 
original parts and to draw them separately. The pupil 



Geometry a^b Geography 123 

of course will not be a stranger to the materials of 
which he is now to be taught the combinations and 
proportions. It must be easier to understand the 
properties of a circle, for instance, or of a square, for 
one who not only has met with these figures occasion- 
ally, but is already acquainted with the manner in 
which they are formed. Besides, the doctrine of 
geometrical solids, which cannot in any degree be 
satisfactorily taught without illustrative models, is 
much better understood and much deeper impressed 
on the mind when the pupils have some idea of the 
construction of the models, and when they are able to 
work out at least those which are less complicated. 

In geography, the drawing of outline maps is an 
exercise which ought not to be neglected in any school. 
It gives the most accurate idea of the proportional 
extent and the general position of the different coun- 
tries; it conveys a more distinct notion than any de- 
scriptio]!, and it leaves the most permanent impression 
on the memory. 



LETTEE XXV 

March 5, 1819. 
My dear G reaves, 

To the courses of exercises Avhich I have recom- 
mended, I anticipate that an objection will be raised 
which it is necessary for me to meet before I proceed 
to speak of intellectual education. 

Granting that these exercises may be as the phrase 
is useful in their way ; granting even that it might be 
desirable to see some of the knowledge they are 
intended to convey diffused among all classes of society ; 
yet where, it will be asked, and by what means can 
they be expected to become general among any other 
than the higher classes ? There you may expect to 
find mothers competent, if at all inclined, to undertake 
the superintendence of such exercises with their chil- 
dren. But considering the present state of things is 
it not absolutely chimerical to imagine that among the 
people mothers should be found who are qualified to 
do anything for their children in that direction ? 

To this objection I would answer in the first place 
that it is not always legitimate to conclude from the 

024) 



UNEDUCATED MOTHEES 125 

present state of things to the f ntnre ; and whenever as 
in the case before ns the present state of things can be 
proved to be faulty and at the same time capable of 
improvement, every friend of humanity will concur 
with me in saying that such a conclusion is inad- 
missible. 

It is inadmissible ; for experience speaks against it. 
The page of history to a thinking observer presents 
mankind laboring under the influence of a chain of 
prejudice of which the links are successively broken. 

The most interesting events in history are but the 
consummation of things which had been deemed impos- 
sible. It is in vain to assign limits to the improve- 
ments of ingenuity ; hut it is still more so to circumscribe 
the exertions of henerolence. 

Such a conclusion then is inadmissible. And history 
speaks more directly to the point. The most conse- 
quential facts plead in favor of our wishes and our 
hopes. The most enlightened, the most active philan- 
thropists, two thousand years ago, could not have fore- 
seen the change that has taken place in the intellectual 
world : tliey could not have anticipated those facilities 
by which not only is the research of a few encouraged, 
but the practical results of that research are with won- 
derful rapidity communicated to thousands in the 
remotest countries of the globe. They could not have 
foreseen the glorious invention by which ignorance and 



126 Letters ox Eaely Educations", XXV 

superstition have been driven out of their stronghoki,. 
and knowledge and truth diffused in the most universal 
and the most effective channels. They could not have 
foreseen that a spirit of inquiry would be excited even 
among those who had formerly been doomed to blind 
belief and to passive obedience. 

Indeed, if there is one feature by which this present 
age bids fair to redeem its character and to heal the 
wounds which it has inflicted on the suffering nations 
it is this, — that we see efforts making in every direc- 
tion with a zeal and to an extent hitherto unparallelled 
to assist the people in acquiring that portion of intel- 
lectual indej^endence without which the true dignity 
of the human character cannot be maintained nor its 
duties adequately fulfilled. There is something so 
cheering in the prospect of seeing the number of those 
for whom it is destined extending with the range of 
knowledge itself, that there is scarcely a field left of 
which men of superior talent have not undertaken to 
cull the flowers and to store the fruits for those who 
have not time or faculty to toil at the elements or fol- 
low up the refinements of science ; and the still more 
material object, to facilitate the first steps, to lay the 
foundation, to ensure the slow but solid progress, and 
to do this in the manner best adapted to the nature of 
the human mind, and to the development of its facul- 
ties: — this object has been pursued with an interest 



Domestic Educatiox 127 

and an ardor that even the results which I have seen 
in my own immediate neighborhood are a sufficient 
pledge that the pursuit will not be abandoned, and 
that it is now not far from its ultimate success. 

This prospect is cheering: but, my dear friend, it is 
not upon this prospect that I have built the hopes of 
my life. It is not the diffusion of knowledge, whether 
it be grudgingly doled out in schools on the old plan, 
or more liberally supplied in establishments on a new 
principle, or submitted to the examination, and laid 
open for the improvement of the adults; — it is not the 
diffusion of knowledge alone to which I look up for the 
welfare of this or any generation. Xo : unless we suc- 
ceed in giving a new impulse, and raising the tone of 
Domedlc Education ; unless an atmosphere of sympathy, 
elevated by moral and religious feeling, be diffused there ; 
unless maternal love be rendered more instrumental 
in early education than any other agent; unless mothers 
will consent to follow the call of their own better feel- 
ings more readily than those of pleasure or of thought- 
less habit; unless they will consent to be mothers, and 
to act as mothers — unless such be the character of edu- 
cation, all our hopes and exertions can end only in 
disappointment. 

Those have indeed widely mistaken the meaning of 
all my plans and of those of my friends who suppose 
that in our labors for popular education we have not a 



128 Letters ox Early Educattoj^, XXV 

higher end in view than the improvement of a system 
of instruction, or the perfection as it were of the gym- 
nastics of the intellect. We have been busily engaged 
in reforming the schools, for we consider them as essen- 
tial in the progress of education: but we consider the 
fireside circle as far more essential. We have done all 
in our power to bring up children with a view to be- 
come teachers, and we have every reason to congratu- 
late the schools that were benefited by this plan: but 
Ave have thought it the most important feature and the 
first duty of our own schools and of every school, to 
develop in the pupils confided to our care those feelings 
and to store their minds with that knowledge which, 
at a more advanced period of life, may enable them to 
give all their heart and the unwearied use of their 
powers to the diffusion of the true spirit which should 
prevail in a domestic circle. In short, whoever has 
the welfare of the rising generation at heart cannot do 
better than consider as his highest object the Educa- 
tion of Mothers. 



LETTER XXVI 

March 15, 1819. 
My dear Greaves, 

Let me repeat that we cannot expect any real im- 
provement in education that shall be felt throughout 
an extensive sphere and that shall continue to spread 
in the progress of time, increasing in vigor as it pro- 
ceeds, unless we begin by educating mothers. 

It is their duty in the domestic circle to do what 
school instruction has not the means of accomplishing; 
to give to every individual child that degree of attention 
which in a school is absorbed in the management of the 
whole ; to let their heart speak in cases where the heart 
is the best judge; to gain by affection what authority 
could never have commanded. 

But it is their duty also to turn all the stock of their 
knowledge to account, and to let their children have 
the benefit of it. 

I am aware that under the present circumstances 
many mothers would either declare themselves or would 
be looked upon by others as incompetent to attempt 
any such thing; as so poor in knowledge and so un- 

(129) 



130 Letters on Early Education, XXVI 

practised iu communicating knowledge that such an 
undertaking on their part would appear as vain and 
presumptuous. 

Xow this is a fact, which, as far as exjjerience goes, 
I am bound to deny. I am not now speaking of those 
classes or individuals whose education has been if not 
very diligently at least in some measure attended to. 
I have now in view a mother whose education has from 
some circumstances or other been totally neglected. I 
will suppose one who is even ignorant of reading and 
writing, though in no country in which the schools are 
in a proper state would you meet with an individual 
deficient in this respect. I will add, a young and un- 
experienced mother. 

Xov/ I will venture to say that this poor and wholly 
ignorant, this young and inexperienced mother, is not 
quite destitute of the means of assisting even in the intel- 
lectual development of her child. 

However small may be the stock of her experience, 
however moderate her own faculties, she must be 
aware that she is acquainted with an infinite number of 
facts, such we will say as they occur in common life, 
to which her infant is yet a stranger. She must be 
aware that it will be useful to the infant to become soon 
acquainted with some of them, such for instance as re- 
fer to things with which it is likely to come into con- 
tact. She must feel herself able to give her child the 



OBeTECT LeSSON^S AT HOME 131 

possession of a variety of names, simply by bringing the 
objects themselves before the child, prononncing the 
names, and making the child repeat them. She must 
feel herself able to bring such objects before the child 
in a sort of natural order — the different parts for in- 
stance of a fruit. Let no one despise these things be- 
cause they are little. There was a time when we were 
ignorant even of the least of them ; and there are those 
to whom we have reason to be thankful for teaching us 
these little things. 

But I do not mean to say that a mother should stop 
there. Even the mother of whom we are speaking, 
that wholly ignorant and inexperienced mother, is 
capable of going much farther, and of adding a variety 
of knowledge which is really useful. After she has 
exhausted the stock of objects which jiresented them- 
selves first, after the child has acquired the names of 
them, and is able to distinguish their parts, it may 
probably occur to her that something more might still 
be said on every one of these objects. She will find 
herself able to describe them to the child with regard 
to form, size, color, softness or hardness of the outside, 
sound when touched, and so on. 

She has now gained a material point; from the mere 
knowledge of the names of objects, she has led the 
infant to a knowledge of their qualities and properties. 
Nothing can be more natural for her than to go on and 



13-2 Letters ox Early Education, XXVI 

compare different objects with regard to these qualities, 
and the greater or smaller degree in which they belong 
to the objects. If the former exercises were adapted 
to cnltivate the memory, these are calculated to form 
the observation and judgment. 

She may still go much farther: she is able to tell her 
child the reasons of things, and the causes of facts. 
She is able to inform it of the origin and the duration 
and the consequences of a variety o£ objects. The 
occurrences of every day and of every hour will furnish 
her with materials for this sort of instruction. Its use 
is evident; it teaches the child to inquire after the 
causes, and accustoms it to think of the consequences 
of things. 

I shall have an opportunity in another place to 
speak of moral and religious instruction; I will there- 
fore only remark in a few words that this last-men- 
tioned class of exercises, which may be varied and 
extended in an almost endless series, will give frequent 
occasion for the simplest illustration of truths belong- 
ing to that branch. It will make the child reflect on 
the consequences of actions; it will render the mind 
familiar with thought; and it will frequently lead to 
recognize in the objects before the child the effects of 
the infinite wisdom of that Being whom long before 
the piety of the mother if genuine must have led him 
to revere and to love " with all his heart, and with all 



Development of Reasoning llio 

y 

his soul, and with all his strength, ajicl with all his 
mind." 

I am afraid that the enumeration of these first essays 
of a mother will he found tedious by other readers 
than yourself, whom I have never seen weary of watch- 
ing nature and drawing instruction from the inexhaus- 
tible spring of experience. I think that we sympathize 
on this subject; that we feel greater interest in the 
unsophisticated consciousness of a pure intention than 
in the most splendid exhibition of refinement of knowl- 
edge. 

And I know not a motive which might render those 
efforts more interesting than the desire of a mother to 
do all in her power for the mental as well as the physi- 
cal and moral development of her children. However 
circumscribed her means, and however limited at first 
may be her success, still there is something that will 
and must prompt her not to rest, that will stimulate 
her to new efforts, and that will at last crown them 
with fruits which are the more gratifying, the more 
they were difficult to obtain. 

Experience has shown that mothers in that seemingly 
forlorn situation which I have described have succeeded 
beyond their own expectation. I look upon this as a 
new proof of the fact that nothing is too difficult for 
maternal love, animated by a consciousness of its 
purity, and elevated by a confidence in the power of 



134 Letters ox Early Education, XXVI 

Him who has inspired the mother's heart with that 
feeling. I do indeed consider it as a free gift of the 
Creator, and I firml}' believe that in the same measnre 
as maternal love is ardent and indefatigable, in the 
same measnre as it is inspired with energy and enhanced 
by faith, — I firmly believe that in the same measnre 
maternal love will be strengthened in its exertions, and 
snpplied with means, even where it appears most 
destitnte. 

Thongh, as I have shown above, it is by no means 
so difficnlt to direct the attention of children to nsefnl 
objects, yet nothing is more common than the com- 
plaint, " I can do nothing with children." If this 
comes from an individnal who is not called npon by 
his peculiar situation to occupy himself with education, 
it is but fair to supjjose that he will be able to make 
himself more useful in another direction than he could 
have done by a laborious and persevering application 
to a task for Avhich he is neither predisposed by inclina- 
tion nor fitted by eminent talent. But those words 
should never come from a mother. A mother is called 
upon to give her attention to that subject. It is her 
duty to do so; the voice of conscience in her own 
breast will tell her that it is. The consciousness of a 
duty never exists without the qualification to fulfil it ; 
nor has a duty ever been undertaken with the spirit of 
courage, of confidence, of love, that has not been ulti- 
mately crowned with success. 



LETTER XXVII 

March 20, 1819. 
My dear Greayes, 

If even an uneducated and totally unassisted mother 
has it in her power to do so much for her child, how 
much better qualified must she be, and how much 
more confidently may she look forward to the results 
of her maternal exertions, if her faculties have been 
properly developed, and her steps guided by the exper- 
ience of those who had engaged in that work before 
her. 

The fact therefore which I stated in my last letter, 
far from rendering my proposition questionable, goes 
directly to confirm its validity and to illustrate its ex- 
pediency. I therefore repeat it, and I would address 
it in the strongest language to all those who like my- 
self are desirous of bringing about a change in our 
present insufficient system of education. If you really 
wish to embark with your facilities, your time, your 
talents, your influence, in a cause likely to benefit a 
large portion of your species — if you wish not to be 
busy in suggesting palliatives but in effecting a per- 

(135) 



136 Letters on Early Education, XXVII 

manent cure of tlie evils under which thousands have 
sunk and hundreds of thousands are still suffering; if 
you wish not merely to erect an edifice that may at- 
tract by its splendor and commemorate your name for 
a while, but which shall pass away like " the baseless 
fabric of vision"; but if on the contrary you prefer 
solid improvement to momentary effect, and the last- 
ing benefit of many to the solitary gratification of 
striking results ; let not your attention be diverted by 
the apparent wants — let it not be totally engrossed by 
the subordinate ones — but let it at once be directed to 
the great and general though little known source from 
which good or evil flows in quantity incalculable and 
rapidity unparallelled — to the manner in which the 
earliest years of childhood are passed, and to the edu- 
cation of those to whose care they are or ought to be 
consigned. 

Of all institutions, the most useful is one in which 
the great business of education is not merely made a 
means subservient to the various purposes of ordinary 
life, but in which it is viewed as an object in itself de- 
serving of the most serious attention and to be brought 
to the highest perfection; a school in which the pupils 
are taught to act as teachers and educated to act as 
educators ; a school, above all, in which the female char- 
acter is at an early period developed in that direction 



Educatioj^ of AVomen 137 

wliicli enables it to take so prominent a part in early 
education. 

To effect this it is necessary that the female charac- 
ter should be thoroughly understood and adequately 
appreciated. And on this subject nothing can give a 
more satisfactory illustration than the observation of 
a mother who is conscious of her duties and qualified to 
fulfil them. In such a mother the moral dignity of her 
character, the suavity of her manners, and the firmness 
of her principles will not more command our admiration, 
than the happy mixture of judgment and feeling which 
constitutes the simple but unerring standard of her 
actions. 

It is the great problem in female education to effect 
this happy union in the mind, which is equally as far 
from imposing any restraint on the feelings as it is 
from warping or biasing the judgment. The marked 
preponderance of feeling which is manifested in the 
female character requires not only the most clear- 
sighted but also the kindest attention from those who 
wish to bring it into harmony with the development of 
the faculties of the intellect and the will. 

It is a mere prejudice to suppose that the acquire- 
ment of knowledge and the cultivation of the intellect, 
must either not be solid and comprehensive, or 
must take away from the female character its simplic- 
ity and all that renders it truly amiable. Every thing 



138 Lettees on Early Education, XXYII 

depends on the motive from which and the spirit in 
which knowledge is acquired. Let that motive be one 
that does honor to human nature, and let that spirit 
be the same which is concomitant to all the graces of 
the female character, — 

" Not obvious, not obtrusive,— but retired," — 

and there will be modesty to ensure solidity of knowl- 
edge, and delicacy to guard against the misdirection of 
sentiment. 

Eor an example, I might refer to one of the numer- 
ous instances which are not the less striking because 
they are not extensively known, in which a mother has 
devoted much of her time and best abilities to the ac- 
quirement of some branches of knowledge in which 
her own education had been defective, but which she 
conceived to be valuable enough to be brought forward 
in the education of her own children. This has been 
the case with individuals highly accomplished in many 
respects, but still alive to every defect and desirous of 
supplying it, if not for their own at least for the benefit 
of their children. 

And no mother has ever been known to have re- 
pented of any pains that she took to qualify herself for 
the most perfect education of those nearest and dear- 
est to her heart. Even without anticipating the future 
accomplishment of her wishes by their progress in 
which she has undertaken to guide them she is amply 



Self-Educatiois^ of Motheks 139 

repaid by the delight immediately arising from the 
task, 

"'to rear the tender thought. 

And teach the young idea how to shoot." 

I have here supposed the most powerful motive, that 
of maternal love ; but it will be the task of early edu- 
cation to supply motives which even at a tender age 
may excite an interest in mental exertion, and yet be 
allied to the best feelinsrs of human nature. 



LETTER XXVIII 

March 27, 1819. 
My DEA.K Greayes, 

If a mother is desirous of taking an active part in the 
intellectual education of her children, I would first 
direct her attention to the necessity of considering, 
not only what sort of knowledge, but in what manner 
that knowledge should be communicated to the infant 
mind. For her purpose the latter consideration is 
even more essential than the former; for, however 
excellent the information may be which she wishes to 
impart, it will depend on the mode of her doing it 
whether it will at all gain access to the mind, or 
whether it will remain unprofitable, neither' suiting 
the faculties nor being apt to excite the interest of the 
child. 

In this respect a mother should be able perfectly to 
distinguish between the mere action of the memory and 
that of the other faculties of the mind. 

To the want of tliis distinction I think we may safely 
ascribe much of the waste of time and the deceptive 
exhibition of apparent knowledge which is so frequent 

(140j 



Memorizing without TJn^derstaxdin^g. 141 

in schools, both of a higher and a lower character. It is 
a mere fallacy to conclude or to pretend that knowl- 
edge has been acquired, from the circumstance that 
terms have been committed to the memory which, if 
rightly understood, convey the expression of knowl- 
edge. This condition, if rightly understood, which is the 
most material is the most generally overlooked. No 
doubt a proceeding of this sort, when words are com- 
mitted to the memory without an adequate explanation 
being either given or required is the most commodious 
evidence for the indolence or ignorance of those who 
practise upon it as a system of instruction. Add to 
which the powerful stimulus of vanity in the pupils, — 
the hope of distinction and reward in some, — the fear of 
exposure or punishment in others, — and we shall have 
the principal motives before us owing to which this 
system in spite of its wretchedness has so long been 
patronized by those who do not think at all, and toler- 
ated by those who do not sufficiently think for them- 
selves. 

What I have said just now of the exercise of the 
memory exclusive of a well-regulated exercise of the 
understanding, applies more especially to the manner 
in which the dead languages have long been and in 
some places still are taught ; a system of which, taking 
it all in all, with its abstruse and unintelligible rules 
and its compulsive discipline, it is difficult to say 



142 Early Letters on Educatioi^, XXVIII 

whether it is more absurd in an intellectual, or more 
detestable in a moral point of view.* 

If such a system, enforcing the partial exercise of 
the memory, is so absurd in its application and so det- 
rimental in its consequences, at a period when the in- 
tellect may be supposed to be able to make some pro- 
gress at least without being so constantly and anxiously 
attended to, an exclusive cultivation of the memory 
must be still more misapplied at the tender age when 
the intellect is only just dawning, when the faculty of 
discerning is yet unformed and unable to consign to 
the memory the notions of separate objects in their dis- 

'^ " The boasted liberty we talk of, is but a mean re- 
ward for the long servitude, the many heart-aches and 
terrors to which our childhood is exposed in going 
through a grammar school." — Spectator, Vol. II., No. 
157. 

On this subject, see Locke On Education, § 163-177. 

" In teaching a language it is the universal practice 
to begin with grammar, and to do everything by rule. 
I affirm this to be a most perposterous method. Gram- 
mar is contrived for men, not for children. Its natural 
place is between language and logic : it ought to close 
lectures on the former, and to be the first lectures on 
the latter. It is a gross deception, that a language 
cannot be taught without rules. A boy who is flogged 
into grammar rules, makes a shift to apply them ; but 
he applies them by rote like a parrot. Boys, for the 



Things before Words 143 

tinction from each other. For a mother to guard 
against an error of this kind the first rule is to teach 
always })j things rather than by 'words. Let there be as 
few objects as possible named to the infant unless you 
are prepared to show the objects themselves. AVhen 
you can show the object the name will be committed 
to the memory, together with the recollection of the 
impression which the object produced on the senses. 
It is an old saying, and a very true one, that our atten- 
tion is much more forcibly attracted and more perma- 
nently fixed by objects which have been brought before 
our eyes than by others of which we have merely gath- 



knowledge they acquire of a language, are not indebted 
to dry rules, but to practice and observation. To this 
day I never think without shuddering of Disputer^s gram- 
mar, which ivas my daily persecution during the most im- 
portant period of life. Curiosity, when I was farther ad- 
vanced in years, prompted me to look at a book that had 
given me so much trouble. At this time I understood 
the rules perfectly; and was astonished that formerly 
they had been to us words ivithout meaning, which I had 
been taught to apply mechanically, without knowing 
how or why. Deplorable it is, that young creatures 
should be so punished without being guilty of any fault 
— more than sufficient to produce a disgust at learn- 
ing, instead of promoting it. Whence then this absurd- 
ity of persecuting boys with grammar rules ? " etc. — 
Loose Hints on Education, p. 279. 



144 Letteks 0]s" Early Education, XXVIII 

ered some notion from hearsay and description or from 
the mention of a name. 

But if a mother is to teach by things, she m^ust recollect 
also that to the formation of an idea more is requisite 
than the bringing the object before the senses. Its 
qualities must be explained; its origin must be ac- 
counted for ; its parts must be described, and their 
relation to the whole ascertained; its use, its effects or 
consequences, must be stated. All this must be done 
in a manner at least sufficiently clear and comprehen- 
sive to enable the child to distinguish the object from 
other objects and to account for the distinction which 
is made. 

It is natural that the degree of perfection with which 
the formation of ideas on this plan can be facilitated 
depends upon circumstances which are not always under 
the control of a mother; but something of the kind 
should be attempted and must be, wherever education 
is intended to take a higher character than mere 
mechanical training of the memory. 

Of objects which cannot be brought before the child 
in reality, pictures should be introduced. Instruction 
founded on pictures will always be found a favorite 
branch with children, and if this curiosity is well 
directed and judiciously satisfied it will prove one of 
the most useful and instructive. 

Whenever the knowledge of an abstract idea, which 



Pictures axd Stories 145 

will not of course admit of any representation of that 
kind, is to be communicated to the child, on the same 
principle an equivalent of that representation should 
be given by an exemplification through the medium of 
a fact laid before the child. This is the original inten- 
tion and the use of moral tales; and, this, too, agrees 
with the excellent old adage, " The way by precept is 
long and laborious, that by example short and easy." 



LETTER XXIX 



Apkil 4, 1819. 
My deak Greaves, 

The second rule that I would give to a mother, re- 
specting the early development of the infant mind is 
this : Let the child not only be acted upon but let him 
be an a(jeiit in intellectual education. 

I shall explain my meaning. Let the mother bear 
in mind that her child has not only the faculties of at- 
tention to and retention of certain ideas or facts, but 
also a faculty of reflection, independent of the thoughts 
of others. It is well done to make a child read, and 
write, and learn, and repeat, — but it is still better to 
make a child thInJc.. We may be able to turn to account 
the opinions of others, and we may find it valuable or 
advantageous to be acquainted with them : we may profit 
by their light ; but we can render ourselves most useful 
to others and we shall be most entitled to the character 
of valuable members of society by the efforts of our 
own minds ; by the result of our own investigations ; by 
those views and their application which we may call 
our own intellectual property. 

(146) 



Intellectual Self-Activity 147 

I am not now speaking of those leading ideas which 
are from time to time thrown ont, and by which science 
is advanced or society benefited at large. I am speak- 
ing of that stock of intellectual property which every 
one may acquire, even the most unpretending individ- 
ual and in the humblest walks of life. I am speaking 
of that habit of reflection which guards against un- 
thinking conduct under any circumstances, and which 
is always active to examine that which is brought before 
the mind; that habit of reflection which excludes the 
self-sufficiency of ignorance or the levity of " a little 
learning"; — which may lead an individual to the 
modest acknowledgement that he knows but little, 
and to the honest consciousness that he knows that 
little well. To engender this habit, nothing is so 
effective as an early development in the infant mind 
of thought, — regular, self-active thought. 

Let not the mother suffer herself to be detained from 
this task by the objections of those who deem the infant 
mind altogether incapable of any exertion of that kind. 
I will venture to say that those who propose that objec- 
tion, though they may be the profoundest thinkers or 
the greatest theorists, will be found to have no practical 
knowledge whatsoever of the subject nor any moral 
interest in the investigation of it. And I, for one, 
would trust more in the experimental knowledge of a 
mother, proceeding from exertions to which she was 



148 Letters ox Eaely Educatiox, XXIX 

prompted by maternal feeling — in that experimental 
knowledge, even of an illiterate mother, I would trust 
more than in the theoretical speculations of the most 
ingenious philosophers. There are cases in which 
sound sense and a warm heart see farther than a highly 
refined, cold, and calculating head. 

I would therefore call upon the mother to begin her 
task, in spite of any objections that may be raised. It 
will be enough if she is persuaded to bec/in ; she will 
then continue of herself; she will derive such gratifi- 
cation from her task that she will never think of relax- 
ing. 

While she unfolds the treasures of the infant mind 
and uncloses the world of hitherto slumbering thought, 
she will not envy the assurance of philosophers who 
would have the human mind to be a " universal 
blank ". Engaged in a task which calls into activity 
all the energies of her mind and all the affections of 
her heart, she will smile at their dictatorial specula- 
tions and their supercilious theories. Without troub- 
ling herself about the knotty question whether there 
are any innate ideas, she will be content if she succeeds 
in developing the innate faculties of the mind. 

If a mother asks for the designation of the subjects 
which might be profitably used as vehicles for the 
development of thought, I would answer her that any 
subject will do if it be treated in a manner suitable to 



Talk j^ot to but with a Child 149 

the faculties of the child. It is the great art in teach- 
ing, never to be at a loss for the choice of an object 
for the illustration of a truth. There is not an object 
so trivial that in the hands of a skilful teacher it might 
not become interesting, if not from its own nature, at 
least from the mode of treating it. To a child every- 
thing is new. The charm of novelty, it is true, soon 
wears off; and if there is not the fastidiousness of 
matured years there is at least the impatience of in- 
fancy to contend with. But then there is for the 
teacher the great advantage of a combination of simple 
elements, which may diversify the subject without 
dividing the attention. 

If I say that any subject will do for the purpose, I 
mean this to be understood literally. Xot only there 
is not one of the little incidents in the life of a child, 
in his amusements and recreations, in his relations to 
his parents and friends and playfellows, — but there is 
not actually anything within the reach of the child's 
attention, whether it belong to nature or to the em- 
ployments and arts of life, that might not be made the 
object of a lesson by which some useful knowledge 
might be imparted, and, which is still more important, 
by which the child might not be familiarized with the 
habit of thinking on what he sees and speaking after 
he has thought. 

The mode of doing this is not by any means to talk 



150 Letters ox Early Education, XXIX 

much to a child, but to enter into conversation vlth a 
child; not to address to him many words, however 
familiar or well chosen, but to bring him to express 
himself on the subject ; not to exhaust the subject, but 
to question the child about it, and to let him find out 
and correct the answers. It would be ridiculous to 
expect that the volatile spirits of an infant could be 
brought to follow any lengthy explanations. The 
attention of a child is deadened by long expositions but 
roused by animated questions. 

Let these questions be short, clear, and intelligible. 
Let them not merely lead the child to repeat in the 
same or in varied terms what he has heard just before. 
Let them excite him to observe what is before him, to 
recollect what he has learned, and to muster his little 
stock of knowledge for materials for an answer. Show 
him a certain quality in one thing, and let him find 
out the same in others. Tell him that the shape of a 
ball is called round ; and if, accordingly, you bring him 
to point out other objects to which the same character 
belongs you have employed him more usefully than by 
the most perfect discourse on rotundity. In the one 
instance he would have had to listen and to recollect; 
in the other he has to observe and to think. 



LETTER XXX 

April 10, 1819. 
My dear Greaves, 

When I recommend to a mother to avoid wearying 
a child by her instructions, I do not wish to encourage 
the notion that instruction should always take the 
character of an amusement or even of play. I am 
convinced that such a notion where it is entertained 
and acted upon by a teacher will forever preclude 
solidity of knowledge, and from a want of sufficient 
exertion on the part of the pupils will lead to that 
very result which I wish to avoid by my principle of a 
constant employment of the thinking powers. 

A child must very early in life be taught a lesson 
which frequently comes too late and is then a most 
painful one, — that exertion is indispensable for the 
attainment of knowledge. But a child should not be 
taught to look upon exertion as an unavoidable evil. 
The motive of fear should not be made a stimulus to 
exertion. It will destroy the interest and will speedily 
create disgust. 

This inferest in study is the first thing which a teacher, 
(151) 



152 Letters on Early Education, XXX 

and in the instances before us, which a mother should 
endeavor to excite and keep alive. There are scarcely 
any circumstances in which a want of application in 
children does not proceed from a want of interest ; and 
there are perhaps none under which a want of interest 
does not originate in the mode of treating adopted by 
the teacher. I would go so far as to lay it down for a 
rule that whenever children are inattentive and appar- 
ently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher should 
always first look to himself for the reason. When a 
quantity of dry matter is before a child, when a child 
is doomed to listen in silence to lengthy explanations or 
to go through exercises which have nothing in them- 
selves to relieve or attract the mind, this is a tax upon 
his spirits which a teacher should make it a point to 
abstain from imposing. In the same manner if the 
child from the imperfection of his reasoning powers or 
his unacquaintance with facts is unable to enter into 
the sense or to follow the chain of ideas in a lesson, 
when he is made to hear or to repeat what to him is 
but " sound without sense " — this is perfectly absurd. 
And when to all this the fear of punishment is added, 
— besides the tedium, which in itself is punishment 
enough, — this becomes absolutely cruel. 

Of all tyrants, it is well known that little tyrants 
are the most cruel ; and of all little tyrants the most 
cruel are >>chool tyrant.^. Xow in all civilized countries 



Teachers at Fault for Lack of Interest 153 

cruelty of every description is forbidden, and even 
cruelty to animals is properly punished, in some by 
the law of the land, and in all stigmatised by public 
opinion. How then comes cruelty to children to be so> 
generally overlooked, or rather thought a matter of 
course ? 

Some, forsooth, will tell us that their own measures 
are wonderfully humane, — that their punishments are 
less severe, — or that they have done away with corporal 
punishments. But it is not to the severity of them 
that I object — nor would I venture to assert in an 
unqualified manner that corporal punishments are 
inadmissible under any circumstances in education. 
But I do object to their application — I do object to 
the principle thnt the children are punished when the uiaMer 
or the sydem is to blame. 

As long as this shall continue, — as long as teachers 
will not take the trouble or will not be found qualified 
to inspire their pupils with a living interest in their 
studies — they must not complain of the want of atten- 
tion nor even of the aversion to instruction which 
some of them may manifest. Could we witness the 
indescribable tedium which must oppress the juvenile 
mind while the weary hours are slowly passing away, 
one by one, in an occupation which they can neither 
relish nor understand its use ; could we remember the 
same scenes which our own childhood has undergone, 



154 Letters oi^ Early Education, XXX 

we should then no longer be surprised at the remiss- 
ness of the school-boy, " creeping, like snail, unwill- 
ingly to school ". 

In saying this I do not mean to make myself the 
advocate of idleness or of those irregularities which 
will now and then be met with even in the best con- 
ducted schools. But I would suggest that the best 
means to prevent them from becoming general is to 
adopt a better mode of instruction, by which the chil- 
dren are less left to themselves, less thrown upon the 
unwelcome employment of passive listening, less 
harshly treated for little and excusable failings, — but 
more roused by questions, animated by illustrations, 
interested and won by kindness. 

There is a most remarkable reciprocal action between 
the interest which the teacher takes and that which he 
communicates to his pupils. If he is not with his 
whole mind present at the subject; if he does not care 
whether it is understood or not, whether his manner 
is liked or not, he will never fail of alienating the 
affections of his pupils, and of rendering them indiffer- 
ent to what he says. But real interest taken in the 
task of instruction — kind words, and kinder feelings — 
the very expression of the features, and the glance of 
the eye, — are never lost upon children. 



LETTER XXXI 

April 17, 1819, 
My dear Greaves, 

Yon are aware of the nature of those exercises which 
were adopted at my suggestion as calculated to employ 
the mind usefully and to prepare it for further pur- 
suits by eliciting thought and forming the intellect. 

I would call them preparatory exercises in more than 
one respect. They embrace the elements of number, 
form, and language; and whatever ideas we may have 
to acquire in the course of our life, they are all intro- 
duced through the medium of one of these three 
departments. 

The relations and proportions of number and form 
constitute the natural measure of all those impressions 
which the mind receives without. They are the meas- 
ures of and comprehend the qualities of the material 
world, form being the measure of space, and number 
the measure of time. Two or more objects distin- 
guished from each other as existing separately in space, 
pre-suppose an idea of their forms, or in other words, 
of the exact space which they occupy; distinguished 

(155) 



156 Letters oin" Early Education^, XXXI 

from each other as existing at different times, they 
come under the denomination of number. 

The reason why I would so early call tlie attention 
of children to the elements of number and form is, 
besides their general usefulness, that they admit of a 
most perspicuous treatment — a treatment of course far 
different from that in which they are but too often 
involved, and rendered utterly unpalatable to those 
who are by no means deficient in abilities. 

The elements of number, or preparatory exercises 
of Calculation, should always be taught by submitting 
to the eye of the child certain objects representing the 
units. A child can conceive the idea of two balls, 
two roses, two books; but it cannot conceive the idea 
of " Two " in the abstract. How would you make 
the child understand that two and two make four, 
unless you show it to him first in reality ? To begin by 
abstract notions is absurd and detrimental, instead of 
being educative. The result is at best that the child 
can do the thing by rote without understanding it ; a 
fact which does not reflect on the child but on the 
teacher, who knows not a higher character of instruc- 
tion than mere mechanical training. 

If the elements are thus clearly and intelligibly 
taught, it will always be easy to go on to more difficult 
parts, remembering always that the whole should be 
done by questions. As soon as you have given to the 



Objects ix Arithmetic 157 

child II knowledge of the names by which the numbers 
are distinguished, you may appeal to it to answer any 
question of simple addition or subtraction or multipli- 
cation or division, performing the operation in reality 
by means of a certain number of objects, balls for 
, instance, wdiich will serve in the place of units. 

It has been objected that children who had been 
used to a constant and palpable exemplification of the 
units by which they w^ere enabled to execute the solu- 
tion of arithmetical questions, would never be able 
afterwards to follow the problems of calculation in the 
abstract, their balls or other representatives being 
taken from them. 

Now experience has shown that those very children 
who had acquired the first elements in the palpable and 
familiar method described had two great advantages 
over others. First, they were perfectly aware not only 
of what they were doing but also of the reason why. 
They were acquainted with the principle on which the 
solution depended ; they were not merely following a 
formula by rote; the state of the question changed 
they were not puzzled, as those are who see only as far 
as their mechanical rule goes and not farther. This, 
while it produced confidence and a feeling of safety, 
gave them also much delight — a difficulty overcome 
with a consciousness of a felicitous eifort always 
prompts to the undertaking of a new one. 



158 Letters on Early Education, XXXI 

The second advantage was that children well versed 
in those illustrative elementary exercises afterwards 
displayed great skill in mental arithmetic. AVithout 
repairing to their slate or paper, without making any 
memorandum of figures, they not only performed oper- 
ations with large numbers, but they arranged and 
solved questions which at first might have appeared 
involved, even had the assistance of memoranda or 
working out on paper been allowed. 

Of the numerous travellers of your nation who did 
me the honor to visit my establishment, there was 
none, however little he might be disposed or qualified 
to enter into a consideration of the whole of my plan, 
who did not express his astonishment at the perfect 
ease and the quickness with which arithmetical prob- 
lems, such as the visitors used to propose, were solved. 
I do not mention this and I did not feel then any pecul- 
iar satisfaction on account of the display with which it 
was connected, through the acknowledgment of 
strangers can by no means be indifferent to one who 
wishes to see his plan judged of by its results. But 
the reason why I felt much interested and gratified by 
the impression which that department of the school 
invariably produced was that it singularly confirmed 
the fitness and utility of our elementary course. It 
went a great way at least with me to make me hold fast 
the principle that the infant mind should be acted 



The Aj^alytical Method 159 

upon by illustrations taken from reality, not by rules 
taken from abstraction; that we ought to teach by 
things more than by ivords. 

In the exercises concerning the elements of form my 
friends have most successfuly revived and extended 
what the ancients called the analytical method — the 
mode of eliciting facts by problems, instead of stating 
them in theories; of elucidating the origin of them, 
instead of merely commenting on their existence ; of 
leading the mind to invent, instead of resting satisfied 
ivith the inventions of others. So truly beneficial, so 
istimulating is that employment to the mind, that we 
have learned fully to appreciate the principle of Plato 
that whoever wished to apply with success to meta- 
physics ought to prepare himself by the study of geo- 
metry. It is not the acquaintance with certain qual- 
ities or proportions, of certain forms and figures 
(though, for many purposes, this is applicable in prac- 
tical life, and conducive to the advancement of science), 
but it is the precision of reasoning, and the ingenuity 
of invention, which, springing as it does from a familiar- 
ity with those exercises, qualifies the intellect for exer- 
tion of every kind. 

In exercises of number and form less abstraction is 
at first required than in similar ones in language. 
But I would insist on the necessity of a careful instruc- 
iion in the maternal language. Of foreign tongues or 



160 Letters on Early EDUcATioiir, XXXI 

of the dead languages I think that they ought to l)o 
studied by all means by those to whom a knowledge of 
them may become useful, or who are so circumstanced 
that they may indulge a predilection for them if their 
taste or habits lead that way. But I know not of one 
single exception that I would make of the principle 
that as early as possible a child should be led to con- 
tract an intimate acquaintance with and make himself 
perfectly master of his native tongue. 

Charles the Fifth used to say that as many languages 
as a man possessed, so often was he man. How far this 
may be true I will not inquire : but thus much I know 
to be a fact, that the mind is deprived of its first 
instrument or organ, as it were ; that its functions are 
interrupted and its ideas confused, when there is a 
want of perfect acquaintance and mastery of at least 
one lam/uaf/e. The friends of oppression, of darkness, 
of prejudice, cannot do better, nor have they at any 
time neglected the point, than to stifle the power and 
facility of free, manly, and well-practised speaking; 
nor can the friends of light and liberty do better, and 
it were desirable that they were more assiduous in the 
cause, than to procure to every one, to the poorest as 
well as to the richest, a facility if not of elegance at 
least of frankness and energy of speech — a facility 
which would enable them to collect and clear up their 



InSTRUCTIOX IX THE VERNACULAR 161 

vague ideas, to embody those which are distinct, and 
which wonld awaken a thousand new ones.* 



'^^ It had been the intention of the editor to subjoin 
a concise account of those exercises which Pestalozzi 
has but alluded to in the last Letters. He is aware 
that the statements made in them will not in any way 
be sufficient for readers wholly unacquainted with the 
subject, to form an adequate idea of what constitutes 
a very prominent feature in the Pestalozzian system. 
The editor, however, finding that in order to do justice 
to the subject he would be obliged to enter into a 
greater number of details than the plan and size of the 
present publication would conveniently admit, begs to 
refer once more to a little work which he has frequently 
alluded to as by far the most useful and distinguished 
performance, in English, connected with Pestalozzi's 
views. The " Hints to Parents " contain the most 
excellent manual of exercises on number, form, and 
language, drawn up, as they profess to be, " in Pesta- 
lozzi's spirit ". The merit of that little work and the 
practical applicability of the plan which it details have 
met with so general acknowledgment on the part of 
those who have followed that plan in the education of 
their own children that the editor is confident that all 
those who feel disposed to give their attention to the 
subject will find the greatest satisfaction in perusing 
and in availing themselves of the " Hints to Parents ". 



LETTER XXXII 

Apkil 25, 1819. 



My dear Greaves, 

Xeed I point out to you the motive from which I 
have said thus much on the early attention to be paid 
to physical and intellectual education ? Need I remind 
you, that I consider these branches merely as leading 
to a liigher aim, — to qualify the human being for the 
free and full use of all the faculties implanted by the 
Creator, — and to direct all these faculties towards the 
perfection of the whole being of man, that he may be 
enabled to act in his peculiar station as an instrument 
of that all-Avise and almighty Power that has called 
him into life ? This is the view which Education should 
lead an individual to take of his relation to his Maker, 
— a view which will at once give him humility to 
acknowledge the imperfection of his attempts and the 
weakness of his power — and inspire him with the 
courage of an unshaken confidence in the source of all 
that is good and true. 

In relation to society, man should be qualified by 
education to be a useful member of it. In order to be 

(162) 



Man must be Independent 163 

truly useful, it is necessary that he should be truly 
independent. Whether that independence may arise 
from his circumstances, or whether it be acquired by 
the honorable use of his talents, or whether it be owing 
to more laborious exertion and frugal habits, it is clear 
that true independence must rise and fall with the 
dignity of his moral character, rather than with affluent 
circumstances or intellectual superiority or indefatiga- 
ble exertion. A state of bondage or of self-merited 
poverty is not more degrading than a state of depend- 
ence on considerations which betray littleness of mind, 
or want of moral energy or of honorable feeling. x\n 
individual whose actions bear the stamp of independ- 
ence of mind cannot but be a useful as well as an 
esteemed member of society. He fills up a certain 
place in society, belonging to himself and no other, 
because he has obtained it by merit and secured it by 
character. His talents^ his time, his opportunities, 
and his influence are all given to a certain end. And 
even in the humbler walks of life, it has always been 
acknowledged that there were individuals who by the 
intelligent, the frank, the honorable character of their 
demeanor, and by the meritorious tendency of their 
exertions, deserved to be mentioned together with 
those whose names were illustrated by the halo of 
noble birth, and by the still brighter glory of genius or 
merit. That such instances are but exceptions, and 



164 Letters ok Early Education, XXXII 

that these exceptions are so few, is owing to the sys- 
tem of education which generally prevails, and which 
is little calculated to promote independence of char- 
acter. 

Considering man as an individual, education should 
contribute toward giving him hap'piness. The feeling 
of happiness does not arise from exterior circumstances ; 
it is a state of the mind, a consciousness of harmony 
both with the inward and the outward world: it as- 
signs their due limits to the desires, and it proposes 
the highest aim to the faculties of man. For happy 
is he who can bring his desires within the measure of 
his means, and who can resign every individual and 
selfish Avish without giving up his content and repose, 
— whose feeling of general satisfaction is not dependent 
on individual gratification. And happy again is he 
who, whenever self is out of the question and the 
higher perfection of his better nature or the best inter- 
ests of his race are at stake, — happy is he who then 
knows of no limits to his efforts, and who can bring 
them to keep pace with his most sanguine hopes ! The 
sphere of happiness is unbounded; it is extending as 
the views are enlarged ; it is elevated as the feelings of 
the heart are raised; it " grows with their growth, and 
strengthens with their strength." 

In order to give the character described here to the 
actions and of the life of an individual, I consider it as 



What produces Happiness ^Q5 

necessary that all the faculties implanted in human na- 
ture should be properly developed. It is not that virtuoi^- 
ity ought to be attained in any direction, or that a degree 
of excellence ought to be anxiously aspired to which is 
the exclusive privilege of pre-eminent talent. But 
there is a degree of development of all the faculties 
which is far from the refinement of any ; and of such 
a course the great advantage will be to prepare the 
mind for a more especial application to any line of 
studies congenial to its inclination, or connected with 
certain pursuits. "^^ 

With regard to the claim which every human being 
has to a judicious development of his faculties by those 
to whom the care of his infancy is confided, a claim of 
which the universality does not seem to be sufficiently 
acknowledged, — allow me to make use of an illustra- 
tion which was on one occasion proposed by one of my 
friends. Whenever we find a human being in a state 



* What Locke has said more generally of education 
is strictly applicable to a course of exercises such as 
have been alluded to in the foregoing pages: " The 
business of education, in respect of knowledge, is not 
to perfect the learner in all or any one of the sciences ; 
but to give his mind that disposition, and those habits, 
that may enable him to attain any part of knowledge 
he shall stand in need of in the future course of his 
life." 



166 Letters ox Early Education, XXXII 

of suffering, and near to the awful moment which is 
for ever to close the scene of his pains and his enjoy- 
ments in this world, we feel ourselves moved by a sym- 
pathy which reminds us that however low his earthly 
condition, here too there is one of our race, subject to 
the same sensations of alternate joy and grief, — born 
with the same faculties, with the same destination, 
with the same hopes for a life of immortality. And as 
we give ourselves up to that idea, we would fain if we 
could alleviate his sufferings and shed a ray of light on 
the darkness of his parting moments. This is a feeling 
which will come home to the heart of every one, — 
even to the young and the thoughtless, and to those 
little used to the sight of woe. AVhy then, we would 
ask, do we look with a careless indifference on those 
who enter life ? Why do we feel so little interest in the 
feelings and in the condition of those who enter upon 
that varied scene, of which, if we would but stop to 
reflect, we might contribute to enhance the enjoy- 
ments, and to diminish the sum of suffering, of dis- 
content and wretchedness ? And that education might 
do that, is the conviction of all those who are compe- 
tent to speak from experience. That it ought to do 
as much is the persuasion, and that it may -^ome time 
accomplish it is the constant endeavor of all those who 
are truly interested in the welfare of mankind. 



LETTER XXXIII 

May 1, 1819. 
My deae GtReaves, 

In my last letter I described the end of eduation to 
be to render man conscientiously active in the service 
of his Maker ; to render him useful by rendering him 
independent with relation to society; and, as an in- 
dividual, to render him happy within himself. 

To this end I conceive that the formation of the in- 
tellect, the attainment of useful knowledge, and the 
development of all the faculties may be made instru- 
mental. But though they will be found highly service- 
able as furnishing the means, they will not supply the 
spring of action. It would be preposterous, no doubt, 
to provide for the facilities of execution, without ex- 
citing the motives of a certain plan or line of conduct. 

Of this fault, the process which frequently goes by 
the name of education and which might more appro- 
priately be donominated a mechanical training, is often 
guilty. The common motive by which such a system 
acts on those whose indolence it has conquered is 
Fear; the very highest to which it can aspire in those 
whose sensibility is excited is Ambition. 

(I6r) 



168 Letteks on Eaklt Educatton^, XXXIII 

It is obvious that such a system can calculate only 
on the lower selfishness of man. To that least amiable 
or estimable part of the human character it is, and al- 
ways has been, indebted for its best success. Upon 
the better feelings of man it turns a deaf ear. 

How is it then that motives leading to a course of 
action which is looked upon as mean and despicable 
or at best as doubtful, when it occurs in life, are 
thought honorable in education ? Why should that 
bias be given to the mind in a school which to gain 
the respect or the affection of others an individual 
must first of all strive to unlearn ; a bias to which 
every candid mind is a stranger ? 

I do not wish to speak harshly of ambition or to re- 
ject it altogether as a motive. There is, to be sure, a 
noble ambition — dignified by its object, and distin- 
guished by a deep and transcendent interest in that 
object. But if we consider the sort of ambition com- 
monly proposed to the school-boy — if we analyze " what 
stuff 't is made of, — whereof it is born," we shall find 
that it has nothing to do with the interest taken in the 
object of study ; that such an interest frequently does 
not exist; and that, owing to its being blended with 
that vilest and meanest of motives, with feai\ it is by 
no means raised by the wish to give pleasure to those 
who propose it ; for a teacher who proceeds on a system 
in which fear and ambition are the principal agents 



Feak and Ambition as Motives 169 

must give u]! his claim to the esteem or tlie affection 
of his pupils. 

Motives like fear or inordinate ambition may stimu- 
late to exertion, intellectual or physical, but they can- 
not warm the heart. There is not in them that life 
which makes the heart of youth to heave with the 
delight of knowledge— with the honest consciousness 

of talent — with the honorable wish for distinction 

with the kindly glow of genuine feeling. Such motives, 
are inadequate in their source and inefficient in their 
application; for they are nothing to the heart, and 
" out of the heart are the issues of life." 

On these grounds it is that in moral as well as intel- 
lectual education I have urged the supreme character 
of the motive of sympathy as the one that should early 
and indeed principally be employed in the management 
of children. On these grounds I have repeatedly urged 
the propriety of attending to that feeling which I have 
no hesitation in declaring to be the first feeling of an 
higher nature that is alive in the child— tlie feeling 
in the infant of love and confidence in the mother. 
Upon this feeling I wish to ground the first founda- 
tion—and on a feeling analogous to it and springing 
from it I wish to guide the future steps of education. 
That in the infant that feeling exists there can be 
no doubt. We have for it the testimonv of those who 



170 Letters on Early Education, XXXIII 

are most competent to judge, because best enabled to 
sympathize with it, — the mothers. 

To the mothers, therefore, I would again and again 
address the request to let themselves be governed by 
their maternal feelings, enlightened by thought, in 
guiding those rising impressons, in developing that 
tender germ in the infant's heart. They will find that 
at first it is yet involved in the animal nature of the 
infant ; that it is an innate feeling, strong, because not 
yet under the control of reason, and filling the whole 
mind because not yet opposed by the impulse of con- 
flicting passions. That feeling, let them believe, has 
been implanted by the Creator. But together with it 
there exists in the infant that instinctive impulse of 
its animal nature which is first made subservient to 
self-preservation and directed towards the satisfaction 
of natural and necessary wants ; which is next bent on 
gratification, and unless it be checked in time, runs 
out into a thousand imaginary and artificial wants, 
hurrying us from enjoyment to enjoyment, and ending 
in consummate selfishness. 

To control and to break this selfish impulse, the 
best, the only course is for the mother to strengthen 
daily that better impulse which so soon gives her the I 
pledge by the first smile on the lips, the first glance of 
affection in the eye of the infant, that though the 
powers of the intellect are yet slumbering, she may 



Subordi:hatioi^ of Selfish Impulse 171 

soon speak a language intelligible to the heart. She 
will be enabled by affection and by firmness to bring 
her child to give up those cravings which render it so 
unamiable, and to give them up for her, the mother's 
sake. By what means she can make herself understood 
— how she can supply the want of words and of pre- 
cepts — I shall not undertake to answer for her : but let 
a mother answer whether, conscious as she is of her 
own love for her child, a love enhanced by reflection, 
she will not without either words or precepts be able 
to find the way to the heart and the affection of her 
infant. 

But if the mother has succeeded in this, let her not 
fancy that she has done every thing. The time will 
come when the hitherto speechless emotions of the 
infant will find a language — when his eye will wander 
from the mother to other individuals within the 
sphere that surrounds him — and when that sphere 
itself will be extended. His affections must then 
no longer rest concentrated in one object, and 
that object though the dearest and kindest of mortals 
yet a mortal, and liable to those imperfections which 
" our flesh is heir to." The affections of the child are 
claimed -by higher objects, — and indeed by the highest. 

Maternal love is the first agent in education; but 
maternal love though the purest of human feelings is 
human ; and salvation is not. of the power of man but 



172 Letters on Early Edlx'ATiox, XXXIII 

of the power of God. Let not the mother fancy that 
she of her own power and with her best intentions can 
raise the child's heart and mind beyond the sphere of 
earthly and perishable things. It is not for her to 
presume that her instructions or her example will ben- 
efit the child, unless they be calculated to lead the 
child to that faith and to that love from which alone 
salvation springs. 

The love and confidence of the infant in the mother 
is but the adumbration of a purer, — of the purest and 
highest feeling which can take up its abode in a mortal 
breast — of a feeling of love and faith, now no more 
confined to an individual — now no more mixed with 
*' baser matter ", — but rising superior to all other emo- 
tions, and rlevatiiu/ man by teaching him humility^ — 
the feeling of love and faith in his Creator and his 
Redeemer. 

In this spirit let education be considered in all its 
stages; let the physical faculties be developed, but 
without forgetting that they form the lower series of 
human nature; let the intellect be enlightened, but 
let it be remembered that the first science which 
thought and knowledge should teach is modesty and 
moderation; let the discipline be regulated and the 
heart be formed, not by coercion but by sympathy, — 
not by precept but by practice ; and above all let it be 
prepared for that influence from above which alone 
can restore the image of God in man. 



LETTER XXXIV. 

May 12, 1819. 
My dear Greaves, 

Before I conclude, I wish to say a few words more— 
but o]i a subject of the most vital importance. A few 
words will suffice for those with whom we can sympa- 
thize, and others have seldom if ever been brought to 
agree by the most elaborate discussion. 

I wish that no Christian mother may lay down this 
volume without asking herself seriously: "Is the 
course and are the measures recommended in these 
letters in unison with principles truly Christian ? Are 
they calculated merely to promote intellectual attain- 
ments or to produce an appearance of self-made and 
self-styled morality ? or are they such as deserve the 
names of the first and preparatory steps to Christian 
Education f' 

Let her answer this qaestion to herself, to the best 
of her knowledge and her feelings, and upon the result 
let it depend whether she will adopt them, with such 
modifications as experience or circumstances will sug- 
gest, in the education of her children. If her answer 



174 Letters on Early Education, XXXIV 

be in the negative ; if her heart should give her warn- 
ing, and matured reflection confirm it, that these 
principles are not Chrixlian, then let them be rejected, 
and be mentioned no more. 

In the meantime allow me to subjoin a few remarks 
on the leading principles of Christianity, on that dis- 
tinguishing characteristic which rendered it " unto the 
Jews a stimbllng block, and unto the Greeks foolishness'' ; 
but to all those who believe it " a potver qf God unto 
salvation '\ and which will eventually make it to " cover 
the earth as the waters cover the deep.'' They are the re- 
marks of an attentive observer, but of one who would 
fain let his heart speak when his intellect might fail of 
guiding him safely or his acquired knowledge of bear- 
ing him out. I hope that they will satisfy among all 
denominations of Christians those who hold the Script- 
ures higher than any human comment; the word of 
God higher than any human authority; and who would 
rather have its sjyirit live in the heart and be visibly 
manifested in all the actions of outward life, than see 
the letter of any particular tenets maintained with 
severity and inculcated with violence. 

The highest aim of the nations of the ancient world 
was national power and greatness; their religions could 
not give them a higher principle than one of selfish- 
ness more or less refined. 

There was, however, one exception which formed 



The Principles of Christianity 175 

the most striking contrast to it— the Mosaic dispensa- 
tion. This religion urged strongly the weakness of 
the creature, and the infinite power of the Almighty; 
the strictness of the law, and the incapability of man 
to fulfil it; the trespassing of the guilty, and the sanc- 
tity of the judge. Though it may appear at first a 
religion only of the law and of terror and of outward 
expiations, yet it was a religion also of faith. There 
were those " qf whom the world was not worthy'' whose 
eyes were opened; who were inspired by the Spirit that 
" searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God;'' who 
saw deeper than " the types and shadows of the cere- 
monial law ",— whose faith was strong enough to offer 
up with the patriarch the sum of their earthly hopes 
to the divine will and to speak with the Psalmist, 
" Lord, though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee." 

In the Christian dispensation, this principle of faith 
was preseryed, as " the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen". But it was intimately 
united with the active principle of love. 

The Christian doctrine, distant alike from encour- 
aging the self-sufficiency of the Heathen world and 
from holding out the terrors of the Mosaic law, taught 
man to look up to his Maker, not as to his Judge only 
but also as to his Redeemer. The dreams of supreme 
power by which one nation courted the absolute sway 
of the world had vanished away; the monuments of 



176 Letteks 0^ Early Education, XXXIV 

their splendor fell into ruins together with the altars 
of their Gods ; the high purposes, too, for which Provi- 
dence had singled out from among the rest the hum- 
bler tribes of one country were accomplished, and Sion 
was no more the dwelling of the Most High nor the 
point of union of all the faithful ; and Christianity was 
hailed by all those whose love was warm, and whose 
faith was strong enough to trust and to delight in its 
ultimate destination as the religion of mankind. As 
such, Christianity has destroyed those barriers by 
which man had presumed to shut out his brother from 
the access to truth; it has invited all, the high and 
the low, to meet on one ground, a ground infinitely 
above the distinctions of rank or wealth or knowledge ; 
and their meeting on that ground was not so miich to 
be considered as a concession on the one side, or as a 
vindication of right on the other, but rather as the 
unanimous desire to embrace the free gift of God 
proffered to all. 

In this spirit, without disturbing their foundations 
Christianity has raised the character of the social insti- 
tutions ; has animated individuals to stand forward and 
with the boldness of truth but with the meekness of 
love to plead the cause of their brothers; has urged 
some to bear her light, to unfold her standard in dis- 
tant regions, and others to proclaim among tliose 
invested with power her unequivocal claims, and thus 



Influence of Christiaxity 177 

to propose that great work in the accomplishment of 
which subsequent ages may rejoice, and see — 

■■ At the voice of the Gospel of Peace. 
The sorrows of Africa cease : 
And tlie Slave and his Master devoutly unite 
To walk in her freedom, and dwell in her light.'' 

For the ultimate destination of Christianity, such as 
it is revealed in the sacred volume and manifested in 
the page of history, I cannot find a more appropriate 
expression than to say that its object is to accomplish 
the education of mankind. Destined to elevate all, it 
would soothe the sorrows of each ; and however differ- 
ent the abilities, and the circumstances, all are to par- 
take of " that one and the self same spirit dividing to every 
man severally as he ivill. ' ' 

If we look upon Christianity, as we are indeed fully 
justified in doing, as the scheme adopted by Infinite 
Wisdom to consummate the great end of the education 
of mankind, we may from the contemplation of the 
means employed deduce an unerring standard for all 
efforts of our own. We may, at the same time, be 
confirmed in the conviction that Christianity is not a 
privilege confined to those only who by any peculiar 
talents or knowledge or exertions might appear better 
qualified to receive it than others, but that it is a gift 
freely tendered to all though deserved by none; — 
adapted not to one condition of life but to the fallen 
state of human nature — to that struggle of the flesh 



178 Lettees on Early Education, XXXIV 

against the spirit — that strange mixture of contradic- 
tions — of conceited knowledge and of aversion to light 
— when man presumes in puny strength to work out 
his own salvation ; when with his eye intent, and his 
heart entranced by the charm of perishable things, he 
yet imagines to fathom the depths of truth and to 
climb the bright summit of happiness, — or when, in 
more gloomy vision, his affections centred all in self, 
he is led to proclaim truth a phantom and love an empty 
sound — when by turns he flies from the turmoil of life 
to a world of dreams, and from the endless maze of 
solitary speculation, to the dissipations of life — when 
" he says, peace — -pear-c — ivhere there is no peace I " 

Among the passages of the sacred volume which 
throw most light on the state of mind which is best 
fitted for the reception of Christian truth, I have 
always considered as one of the most illustrative these 
words of the Savior — " Whosoever shall not receive the 
kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter 
therein. ^^ What can there be in " a little child" de- 
serving to be compared with a state of readiness for the 
Christian faith ? It cannot be an effort of morality or 
an attempt at high perfection ; for the infant is incap- 
able of any. It cannot be any degree of knowledge or 
intellectual refinement; for the infant is a stranger to 
both. What then can it be except that feeling of love 
and confidence of which the mother is for a time the 



"As A LITTLE Child" I79 

first and only object ? That feeling is analogous in its 
nature and agency to the state of mind described by 
the name of faith. It does not rest on a conviction of 
the understanding, but it is more convincing than any 
syllogism could have been. Xot being founded on it 
it cannot be injured by reasoning; it has to do with 
the heart only. It is prior to the development of all 
other faculties :-if we ask for its origin, we can only 
say that it is instinctive ;— or if we mean to resolve an 
unmeaning expression into the truth, it is a gift of Him 
who has called into life all the hosts of the creation- 
in whom " ive live and move, and have our being. " 

Analogous to that emotion, like it imparted by the 
Giver of all that is good, is the state of mind of those 
who ' ' believe to the saving of the soul. ' ' Though infinitely 
elevated above it, it yet partakes in like manner of the 
nature of a feeling as well as a conviction; arising from 
both, it is invested with that energy which brings forth 
fruits of love; it proves that true faith is kindred in 
its nature to active love, and that " he that loveth not, 
hnoiveth not God ; for God is love. " 

That emotion in the infant mind, that adumbration 
of faith and of love, can be dearer to none than to a 
Christian mother. Let her be convinced that there is 
only one way for her to manifest her maternal affection 
—and that way is to watch over the gift of God to her 
child— to be thankful to the Giver, and, hoping that 



180 Letters on Early Education, XXXIV 

from Him may come the increase, to do all in her 
power to unfold the germ ; to be mild and firm and 
persevering in the task; to look to her own heart for 
a motive, and to heaven for the blessing. 

Happy the mother who thus leads her children to 
faith, and from faith to love, and from love to happi- 
ness. And thrice happy she who has before her eyes 
in her task the recollection of one who in genuine and 
unassuming piety watched over the dream of her infant 
years— an example that, stronger than any precept, 
strong as the voice of maternal love in her own breast, 
calls upon her " to remember ;— to resemble;— to per- 
severe ! " 



THE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS. 




Joliii Henry Pestalozzi. 

1. Pestalozzi;^ls Aim and Work. By Bahon DEGumPs. Translated by 
Margaret CuthbertsonCrombie. 12ino, 
pp. 336. Manilla 50 cts. ; Cloth $1.50. ' 
Among the best books that could 
be added to the teacher's library.— 
The Chautauquan. 

It is sufficient to say that the book 
affords the fullest material for a knowl- 
edge of the life of the great education- 
al veiovxn^v.— Literary World. 

The most satisfactory biography of 
Pestalozzi accessible to English read- 
ers.— Wisconsin Journal of Education. 
2, Hoiv Gertrude Teaches her Chil- 
, , ^'ren ; an attempt to help mothers to 

teach their own children. By .J. H. Pestalozzi. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 308. $1.50. 
The greatest of Pestalozzi's educational works is now for the first time 
published in English translation. 

^ Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude has appeared in sevaral editions and 
is considered an essential part of every teacher's library. But there is 'very 
ittle m It pertaining to teaching. It is mostly a story of German peasant 
life, interesting because it made Pestalozzi famous. But for some reason 
the sequel, How Gertrude Teaches her Children, has been ne-lected A 
translation of some parts of it appeared in Biber's " Life of Pestalozzi "'and 
some of It appeared in Barnard's American Journal of Education. But a 
complete translation now appears for the first time, and for the first time 
makes English readers thoroughly familiar with Pestalozzi's ideas of ele- 
mentary instruction. The volume contains also " The Method ; a Report bv 
Pestalozzi to the Society of the Friends of Education, Burgdorf " • and an 
introduction of 51 pages by Ebenezer Cooke, and abundant notes. ' 

Dr. G. Stanley Hall says : " Modern education almost be<nns with Pes- 
talozzi's tale, ' How Gertrude Teaches her Children '. It describes the re- 
generation of a dismal hamlet by a good teacher as the principle by which 
nations are made great. Fichte lit his torch here and made Germany the 
strongest state since ancient Eome by becoming the educational state of 
the world, and France has now imitated her example." 

3. Portrait of Pestalozzi, bust life-size, on paper 22 by 28 inches suit- 
able for framing. 25 cts. ' 

4. Object Lessons ; or Words and Things. By T. G. Rooper. Leather- 
ette, 16rao. pp. 56. 50 cts. 

5. The Pestalozzian Series of Arithmetics. Based upon Pestalozzi's 
method of Teaching Elementary Number. By James H. Hoose. Boards 
16rao, First Year, Pupils Edition, pp. 156, 35 cts. Teachers Edition pp' 
21 /. 50 cts. Second Year, PujuVs Edition, bOci^. 

C. W. BARDEEX, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 



TEE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS. 

The Pestalozzian Arithmetics. 

1. Teachers'' Manual and First-Year Text-Book of Primary Arithmetic. 
Based upon Pestalozzi's method of teaching Elementary Number. By 
James H. Hoose, Ph.D. Boards, pp. 217, 50 cts. 

i. First-Year Text-Book oi Primary Arithmetic. Boards, 16nii), pp. 135. 
35 cts. 

5. Second-Year Text-Book of Primary Arithmetic. Boards, 16mo, pp. 236, 
50 cts. 

This is a practical exposition of the Pestalozzian Metlwd, and has met with 
great success not only in the Cortland Normal School, where it was fii-st 
developed, but in many other leaduag schools, as in Gloversville, Babylon, 
etc. It is diametrically opposed to the Grube Method, and good teachers 
should be familiar with both, that they may choose intelligently between 
them 

The author states the principles of this system as follows- 

" The Pestalozzian system of Number proceeds on the theory and prac- 
tice of introducing to the pupil a minimum variety of objects, and of giving to 
him a maximum amount of practice upon a few forms. The forms are those 
which constitute mathematics; they are as general as mathematics are gen- 
eral; learned once, always useful. 

" The system recognizes the difference between processes in arithmetic, 
and the reasoning required in so-called practical examples. The mastery of 
a process (addition, multiplication or subtraction) is a language, is an ex- 
pertness, is a facility in procedure: it is acquire^, by practice, repetition; it 
is habit, w^hich is power acting in a particular form. Practical examples in- 
troduce relations which are discovered bj' the logical aptitudes of mind. 
The child masters easily a form of operation, a process; this mastery gives 
the pupil ambition; this ambition to test in a greater degree his powers, 
constitutes his interest in his work; his interest stimulates his courage. The 
pupil is trained in this manner in his moral character. The very uniformi- 
ties in the system are sources of strength to the child, the same as the uni- 
formities of action in learning the keyboard of the piano are elements of 
mastery in learning to play the instrument." 

U. Lessons in Number, as given in a Pestalozzian School, Cheam, Surrey. 
The Master's Manual. By C. Reinek. 16mo, pp.224. $1.50. 

This work was prepared in 1835 under the supervision of Dr. C. Mayo in 
the first English Pestalozzian school, and has particular value as represent- 
ing directly the educational methods of the great reformer. 

C. W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 



THE SCHOOL B ULLETIN P UBLICA TIONS.- 




Friedricli Froebel. 

1. AxitoUograiJhy of Friedricli Froehel. Translated and annotated by 
Emilie Michaelis and H. Keatley 
Moore. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 183. $1.50. 

Useful and interesting * * * 
among the best that could be added to 
the teacher's library.— T'Ae Chautau- 
quan. 

There is no better introduction to the 
Kindergarten.— TFisco/isiM Journal of 
Education, Sept, 1889. 

2. Froebel's Letters on the Kindergar- 
ten. Translated from the German edition 
of 1887 by Emilie Michaelis & H. Keat- 
ley Moore. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 331. $1..50. 
It would be an everlasting loss if the 
treasures which lie in Friedrich Froebel were allowed to perish. He is a 
jewel, a pearl of price.- ^rfoZ;;/t Biesterweg. 

3. Child and Child-Nature. Contributions to the understanding of 
Froebel's Educational Theories. By theBaroness Marenholtz von Bue 
LOW. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 207. $1.50. 

It is a fit companion to the Autobiography and the two are published in 
the same style— a capital idea— and a royal pair of volumes they make.— 
Educational Courant. 

Its design is to illustrate the theory and philosophy of Froebel's system. 
It does this so clearly and pleasingly as to give no excuse for criticism. * * 
* * The volume is one profitable for every mother, as well as for every 
teacher of children.— CAicag'O Interocean. 

4. The Neiv Education. By Prof. J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Leatherette, 
16mo, pp. 47. 50 cts. Contains an account of Froebel's life, work, and 
principles. 

5. The Kindergarten System. Principles of Froebel's System, and theii 
bearing on the Education of Women. Also remarks on the higher educa- 
tion of women. By Emily Shirreff. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 200. $1.00. 

6. Essays on the Kindergarten. Being a selection of Lectures read be- 
fore the London Froebel Society, Cloth, 12mo, pyx 17,5. $1.00. 

7. Primary Helps. By W. N. Hailmann. A Kindergarten Manual for 
Public School Teachers. Boards, 8vo, pp. 58, with 15 full page plates. 
75 cts. 

8. The New Education. Edited by W. N. Hailmann. Vol. VI., the last 
published. Cloth, 8vo, pp. 146. $2.00. 

9. The First Three Years of Childhood. By B. Perez, with an intro- 
duction by Prof. Sully. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 294. $1..50. 

C. W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 



■THE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS.- 




-^ 



suggestive, and practically helpful. 



John j\mos Comenius. 

John Anws Comenius, Bishop of the Moravians, his Life and Educational 

Woi-ks. By S. S. Laurie. Beading 

f^^h^ "\ Circle Edition. Cloth, 16mo, pp. 272. 

, dg^^^^^^ \ TYA's edition differs from those 

^^^M'^^^W \ hitherto published (1) in being in- 

dexed by head-lines, (2) in the inser- 
tion of five portraits, and (3) in the 
addition of a bibliography, with fif- 
teen photographic reproductions of 
pages from early editions of his 
works. The core of the book is the 
account of The Great Didactic, pages 
73-153, the best treatise on Method 
ever published, at once broad, sound. 
As a contribution both to the history of 
education and to its theories this book occupies a unique place, and is indis- 
pensable in even a small library of teachers' books. 

2. The Orbis Pictus of John Amos Comenius. Cloth, 8vo, pp. 232. $3.00. 
This beautiful volume is a reprint of the English edition of 1727, but with 

reproduction of the 151 copper-2)late illustrations of the original edition of 1658. 
A copy of the rare original commands a hundred dollars, and this reprint 
must be considered a most important contribution to pedagogical literature. 
The Orbis Pictus was not only the first book of object lessons, but the first 
text-book in general use, and indeed, as the EncT/clopoedia Britannica states, 
" the first children's picture-book." 

The book is a beautiful piece of work, and in every way superior to 
most of the fac-similes we have so far been presented with.— iY. Y. World. 

We welcome this resurrection of the 0?Ms Pictus, which has lain too 
long in suspended animation. The master-piece of Comenius, the prince of 
European educators of the 17th century, was the greatest boon conferred 
on the little ones in primary schools.— Nation. 

The old wood illustrations are reproduced with absolute fidelity by a 
photographic process, and as the text follows closely letter by letter the old 
text, the book is substantially a copy of the rare original.— Literary World. 

3. The Place of Cotnenius in the History of Education. By Nicholas Mur- 
ray Butler. Paper, 16mo, pp. 20 . 15 cts. 

k. The Text Books of Comenius. By Wm. H. Maxwell. Paper, 8vo, pp. 
24. 29 Illustrations. 25 cts. 

Everyone who feels that he cannot afford that beautiful volume, the 
Orbis Pictus, should invest a quarter in this, and find out what Comenius 
did. — Educational Courant. 

C. W. BARDEEX, Publisjier, Syracuse, N. Y. 






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